Category: Military Intelligence

MIL-OSI NGOs: Myanmar: Rohingyas face worst violence since 2017 – new testimony

Source: Amnesty International –

Rohingya face persecution from rebel Arakan Army and Myanmar military

Bangladesh has forcibly returned more than 5,000 Rohingyas this year

Refugee camps desperately short of essential supplies and services

‘We quickly hid in the mud, sitting down in the muddy water, and then another bomb exploded, killing my parents, sisters and many others’ – 18-year-old woman

‘Those lucky enough to make it to Bangladesh do not have enough to eat, a proper place to sleep, or even their own clothes’ – Agnès Callamard

Newly arrived Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh need urgent access to food, shelter and medical attention after enduring the worst violence against their communities since the Myanmar military-led campaign in 2017, Amnesty International said today.

New testimony gathered by Amnesty shows how Rohingya families forced to leave their homes in Myanmar have been caught in the middle of increasingly fierce clashes between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army, one of many armed groups opposing the junta. Hundreds of thousands of people have been internally displaced and upwards of tens of thousands of Rohingya have crossed the border or are waiting to cross the border to seek refuge in Bangladesh.

The recent escalation in Myanmar’s Rakhine State started in October 2023 with the launch of a rebel counter-offensive by the Arakan Army and two other armed groups that has posed the biggest threat to military control since the 2021 coup. Myanmar’s military has responded by stepping up indiscriminate air strikes that have killed, injured and displaced civilians.

The impact on Rakhine State, where many of the more than 600,000 Rohingya in Myanmar still live, has been severe with towns transformed into battlegrounds.

In Bangladesh, authorities have been pushing Rohingya fleeing the conflict back into Myanmar, while those who reached the Bangladesh camps told of a desperate shortage of essential supplies and services there.

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, said:

“Once again, the Rohingya people are being driven from their homes and dying in scenes tragically reminiscent of the 2017 exodus.

“We met people who told us they lost parents, siblings, spouses, children and grandchildren as they fled fighting in Myanmar. But this time, they are facing persecution on two fronts, from the rebel Arakan Army and the Myanmar military, which is forcibly conscripting Rohingya men.

“Those lucky enough to make it to Bangladesh do not have enough to eat, a proper place to sleep, or even their own clothes.

“The interim Bangladesh government and humanitarian relief organisations must work together so that people can have access to essential services such as food, adequate shelter and medical care.

“Bangladesh must also ensure that it does not forcibly return people to escalating conflict. Meanwhile, the international community needs to step up with funds and assistance for those living in the refugee camps.”

First-person accounts of killings

In September, Amnesty interviewed 22 people in individual and group settings who recently sought refuge in Bangladesh, joining more than one million Rohingya refugees, the majority having arrived in 2017 or earlier.

The new arrivals said the Arakan Army unlawfully killed Rohingya civilians, drove them from their homes and left them vulnerable to attacks, allegations the group denies. These attacks faced by the Rohingya come on top of indiscriminate air strikes by the Myanmar military that have killed both Rohingya and ethnic Rakhine civilians.

Many Rohingya, including children, who were fleeing the violence to Bangladesh drowned while crossing by boat.

Bangladesh blocks Rohingya seeking safety

The people Amnesty interviewed in Bangladesh had recently fled Maungdaw Township in northern Rakhine State, which the Arakan Army tried to capture from the Myanmar military after seizing Buthidaung Township in May.

Many were survivors of a drone and mortar attack that took place on 5 August on the shores of the Naf River that divides Myanmar and Bangladesh.

All those interviewed stressed that their urgent priority now was access to basic services in the camp, including aid, shelter, money, security, food and healthcare.

They were also terrified of being sent back to Myanmar. But Amnesty International found that Bangladeshi border authorities have forcibly returned Rohingya people fleeing the violence, in violation of the international law principle of non-refoulment, which prohibits returning or transferring anyone to a country where they are at risk of serious human rights violations.

A 39-year-old Rohingya man told Amnesty that he fled Maungdaw with his family on 5 August and on the early morning of following day when they were near the Bangladesh shore their boat started taking on water before tipping over.

He said he passed out and woke up on the beach to see dead bodies washed ashore. He later discovered that all six of his children, aged between two and 15, had drowned. He said his sister also lost six of her children.

He said: “The border guards were nearby, but they did not help us.” Residents told him later that Bangladeshi border guards prevented them from helping.

Instead, the Bangladesh border guards detained him and he and the others who were with him were sent back to Myanmar the next evening; they found another boat and returned. According to one credible estimate, there have been more than 5,000 cases of refoulement this year, with a spike following the 5 August attacks.

“Sending people back to a country where they are at real risk of being killed is not only a violation of international law; it will also force people to take greater risks while making the journey to avoid detection, such as traveling by night or on longer routes,” Callamard said.

Denied essential support in refugee camps

The Rohingya who made it to the refugee camps are living off the generosity of relatives there. New arrivals in particular expressed concern that they were unable to register with the UN refugee agency for essential support. As a result, many are going without meals, and are afraid to venture out for fear of deportation, even when in need of medical care.

Interviewees also mentioned the deteriorating security situation in the camps, due mainly to the presence of two Rohingya armed groups: the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation and the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army. Myanmar’s shifting conflict dynamics in Rakhine State have meant that some Rohingya militants have aligned with the junta in Myanmar. As a result, Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh fear that they or their family members could be snatched and forcibly taken back and conscripted to fight there.

A 40-year-old woman said:

“We are constantly afraid of moving from one place to another because we don’t have any documents. We are newcomers here, and we have also heard about people being abducted.”

In a meeting with Amnesty, Bangladesh officials rejected the allegations of refoulement but said border guards “intercept” people trying to cross the border. They also stressed that the country cannot accommodate any more Rohingya refugees.

The vast majority hoped for resettlement in a third country.

Trapped between the Arakan Army and Myanmar military

The Myanmar military has persecuted Rohingya for decades and expelled them en masse in 2017. It is now forcing them to join the army as part of a nationwide military service law. The Myanmar military has also reportedly reached an informal “peace” pact with the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation, an older Rohingya armed group that has reemerged as a force in recent months. These complex developments have further inflamed tensions between the Rohingya and the ethnic Rakhine, whom the Arakan Army purports to represent.

The rise in fighting nationwide has also resulted in mounting allegations of abuses by armed groups fighting against the military. Many Rohingya described the fatal consequences of being trapped between the two sides.

“Every time there is a conflict, we get killed,” one Rohingya interviewee told Amnesty.

A 42-year-old shopkeeper said that on 1 August, a munition of unknown origin landed outside his house in Maungdaw, killing his four-year-old son. On 6 August, the Arakan Army – who he identified by their badges – entered his village in Maungdaw and relocated all the Hindu and Buddhist families to another area they said was safe, while the Rohingya families were left in place.

“They began causing unrest [using it as a base to launch attacks] in the village, which forced us, the Muslim families, to leave on 7 August. We were the only ethnic group left in the village. It seemed like they did this intentionally,” he said.

When he later took shelter in downtown Maungdaw on 15 August, he said he saw Arakan Army “snipers” shoot two Rohingya civilians. “I witnessed the Arakan Army kill a woman right on the spot with gunfire while she went to a pond to collect water … there was another man who was sitting and smoking in front of his house and he too was shot right in his head and killed.”

On 13 October, in response to Amnesty’s questions, the Arakan Army said these allegations were unsubstantiated or not credible. It said it issued warnings for civilians to leave Maungdaw ahead of its operations and helped evacuate people, that it instructs its soldiers to distinguish between civilians and combatants, and that in case of breaches, it takes disciplinary action.

Since late last year, Amnesty has separately documented Myanmar military air strikes that have killed civilians and destroyed civilian infrastructure in Rakhine State. This year, the impact of the Myanmar military conscripting Rohingya has added to the historical, systemic discrimination and apartheid already experienced by Rohingya.

“I felt really bad that they were involving us in their fight, even though we had nothing to do with it. It felt like they were laying the foundation to get us killed,” a 63-year-old cattle trader said.

Families wiped out

On 5 August, the intensity of bombardments and gunfights between the Myanmar military and Arakan Army forced scores of people from Maungdaw to seek shelter in sturdier homes near the Naf river border with Bangladesh.

Recalling that day, the Rohingya cattle trader said the Arakan Army was:

“getting closer to our village, capturing the surrounding villages … they flew drones in the sky, holding them there for about an hour, and could drop bombs from the drones whenever and wherever they wanted with remote control. They killed so many people”.

That afternoon, many recounted seeing a drone and hearing multiple blasts. The cattle trader said he heard eight to 10 blasts, and that bombs were exploding “before even touching the ground”. He saw a small unmanned aerial device flying near the crowd that looked like a “rounded-shaped drone” with something attached underneath.

He said his wife, daughter, son-in-law, and two of his grandchildren were killed, while the youngest grandchild, aged one, was seriously injured and later had her lower left leg amputated at the knee in Bangladesh.

One 18-year-old woman from Maungdaw said she lost both parents and two of her sisters, aged seven and five, during the blast. At the time of the attack, her father was carrying one of her sisters while her mother carried the other. When they reached the Maungdaw shore in the afternoon in search of boats to cross to Bangladesh, an explosion occurred.

“We quickly hid in the mud, sitting down in the muddy water, and then another bomb exploded, killing my parents, sisters and many others,” she said. “I saw it all with my own eyes – my parents and sisters were killed when the bomb shrapnel hit them.”

She said she saw about 200 bodies on the shore, a figure cited independently by another interviewee.

Almost everyone who Amnesty spoke to said they lost at least one relative while trying to flee Myanmar. Medical records shared with Amnesty from the days after the attack show treatment for bomb blast injuries after arriving in Bangladesh. Since August there has been a dramatic increase in treatment of war wounds from those fleeing Myanmar.

In its response to Amnesty, the Arakan Army said that the Myanmar military or aligned armed groups were likely those most responsible and that eyewitnesses or survivors may be affiliated with militant groups.

Callamard said:

“The Arakan Army must allow an independent, impartial and effective investigation into possible violations carried out during their operations. Both the Arakan Army and the Myanmar military must abide by international humanitarian law.

“We continue to call on the UN Security Council to refer the entire situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court.”

The 2021 military coup in Myanmar has had a catastrophic impact on human rights. Myanmar’s military has killed more than 5,000 civilians and arrested more than 25,000 people. Since the coup, Amnesty has documented indiscriminate air strikes by the Myanmar military, torture and other ill-treatment in prison, collective punishment and arbitrary arrests.

MIL OSI NGO –

January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: Memorandum on Advancing the United States’ Leadership in Artificial Intelligence; Harnessing Artificial Intelligence to Fulfill National Security Objectives; and Fostering the Safety, Security, and Trustworthiness of Artificial Intelligence

US Senate News:

Source: The White House
MEMORANDUM FOR THE VICE PRESIDENT
               THE SECRETARY OF STATE
               THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY
               THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
               THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
               THE SECRETARY OF COMMERCE
               THE SECRETARY OF ENERGY
               THE SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
               THE SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY
               THE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
               THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE
               THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO THE UNITED NATIONS
               THE DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
               THE ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF OF STAFF
               THE ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS
               THE ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR ECONOMIC
                  POLICY AND DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL
               THE CHAIR OF THE COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS
               THE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY
               THE ADMINISTRATOR OF THE UNITED STATES AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
               THE DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
               THE DIRECTOR OF THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
               THE NATIONAL CYBER DIRECTOR
               THE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF PANDEMIC PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE POLICY
               THE DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY
               THE DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL GEOSPATIAL-INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
               THE DIRECTOR OF THE DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
SUBJECT:      Advancing the United States’ Leadership in
               Artificial Intelligence; Harnessing Artificial
               Intelligence to Fulfill National Security
               Objectives; and Fostering the Safety, Security,
               and Trustworthiness of Artificial Intelligence
     Section 1. Policy. (a) This memorandum fulfills the directive set forth in subsection 4.8 of Executive Order 14110 of October 30, 2023 (Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence). This memorandum provides further direction on appropriately harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) models and AI-enabled technologies in the United States Government, especially in the context of national security systems (NSS), while protecting human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and safety in AI-enabled national security activities. A classified annex to this memorandum addresses additional sensitive national security issues, including countering adversary use of AI that poses risks to United States national security.
     (b) United States national security institutions have historically triumphed during eras of technological transition. To meet changing times, they developed new capabilities, from submarines and aircraft to space systems and cyber tools. To gain a decisive edge and protect national security, they pioneered technologies such as radar, the Global Positioning System, and nuclear propulsion, and unleashed these hard-won breakthroughs on the battlefield. With each paradigm shift, they also developed new systems for tracking and countering adversaries’ attempts to wield cutting-edge technology for their own advantage.
     (c) AI has emerged as an era-defining technology and has demonstrated significant and growing relevance to national security. The United States must lead the world in the responsible application of AI to appropriate national security functions. AI, if used appropriately and for its intended purpose, can offer great benefits. If misused, AI could threaten United States national security, bolster authoritarianism worldwide, undermine democratic institutions and processes, facilitate human rights abuses, and weaken the rules-based international order. Harmful outcomes could occur even without malicious intent if AI systems and processes lack sufficient protections.
     (d) Recent innovations have spurred not only an increase in AI use throughout society, but also a paradigm shift within the AI field — one that has occurred mostly outside of Government. This era of AI development and deployment rests atop unprecedented aggregations of specialized computational power, as well as deep scientific and engineering expertise, much of which is concentrated in the private sector. This trend is most evident with the rise of large language models, but it extends to a broader class of increasingly general-purpose and computationally intensive systems. The United States Government must urgently consider how this current AI paradigm specifically could transform the national security mission.
     (e) Predicting technological change with certainty is impossible, but the foundational drivers that have underpinned recent AI progress show little sign of abating. These factors include compounding algorithmic improvements, increasingly efficient computational hardware, a growing willingness in industry to invest substantially in research and development, and the expansion of training data sets. AI under the current paradigm may continue to become more powerful and general-purpose. Developing and effectively using these systems requires an evolving array of resources, infrastructure, competencies, and workflows that in many cases differ from what was required to harness prior technologies, including previous paradigms of AI.
     (f) If the United States Government does not act with responsible speed and in partnership with industry, civil society, and academia to make use of AI capabilities in service of the national security mission — and to ensure the safety, security, and trustworthiness of American AI innovation writ large — it risks losing ground to strategic competitors. Ceding the United States’ technological edge would not only greatly harm American national security, but it would also undermine United States foreign policy objectives and erode safety, human rights, and democratic norms worldwide.
     (g) Establishing national security leadership in AI will require making deliberate and meaningful changes to aspects of the United States Government’s strategies, capabilities, infrastructure, governance, and organization. AI is likely to affect almost all domains with national security significance, and its use cannot be relegated to a single institutional silo. The increasing generality of AI means that many functions that to date have been served by individual bespoke tools may, going forward, be better fulfilled by systems that, at least in part, rely on a shared, multi-purpose AI capability. Such integration will only succeed if paired with appropriately redesigned United States Government organizational and informational infrastructure.
     (h) In this effort, the United States Government must also protect human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and safety, and lay the groundwork for a stable and responsible international AI governance landscape. Throughout its history, the United States has been a global leader in shaping the design, development, and use of new technologies not only to advance national security, but also to protect and promote democratic values. The United States Government must develop safeguards for its use of AI tools, and take an active role in steering global AI norms and institutions. The AI frontier is moving quickly, and the United States Government must stay attuned to ongoing technical developments without losing focus on its guiding principles.
     (i) This memorandum aims to catalyze needed change in how the United States Government approaches AI national security policy. In line with Executive Order 14110, it directs actions to strengthen and protect the United States AI ecosystem; improve the safety, security, and trustworthiness of AI systems developed and used in the United States; enhance the United States Government’s appropriate, responsible, and effective adoption of AI in service of the national security mission; and minimize the misuse of AI worldwide.
Sec. 2. Objectives. It is the policy of the United States Government that the following three objectives will guide its activities with respect to AI and national security.
     (a) First, the United States must lead the world’s development of safe, secure, and trustworthy AI. To that end, the United States Government must — in partnership with industry, civil society, and academia — promote and secure the foundational capabilities across the United States that power AI development. The United States Government cannot take the unmatched vibrancy and innovativeness of the United States AI ecosystem for granted; it must proactively strengthen it, ensuring that the United States remains the most attractive destination for global talent and home to the world’s most sophisticated computational facilities. The United States Government must also provide appropriate safety and security guidance to AI developers and users, and rigorously assess and help mitigate the risks that AI systems could pose.
     (b) Second, the United States Government must harness powerful AI, with appropriate safeguards, to achieve national security objectives. Emerging AI capabilities, including increasingly general-purpose models, offer profound opportunities for enhancing national security, but employing these systems effectively will require significant technical, organizational, and policy changes. The United States must understand AI’s limitations as it harnesses the technology’s benefits, and any use of AI must respect democratic values with regard to transparency, human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and safety.
     (c) Third, the United States Government must continue cultivating a stable and responsible framework to advance international AI governance that fosters safe, secure, and trustworthy AI development and use; manages AI risks; realizes democratic values; respects human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy; and promotes worldwide benefits from AI. It must do so in collaboration with a wide range of allies and partners. Success for the United States in the age of AI will be measured not only by the preeminence of United States technology and innovation, but also by the United States’ leadership in developing effective global norms and engaging in institutions rooted in international law, human rights, civil rights, and democratic values.
Sec. 3. Promoting and Securing the United States’ Foundational AI Capabilities. (a) To preserve and expand United States advantages in AI, it is the policy of the United States Government to promote progress, innovation, and competition in domestic AI development; protect the United States AI ecosystem against foreign intelligence threats; and manage risks to AI safety, security, and trustworthiness. Leadership in responsible AI development benefits United States national security by enabling applications directly relevant to the national security mission, unlocking economic growth, and avoiding strategic surprise. United States technological leadership also confers global benefits by enabling like-minded entities to collectively mitigate the risks of AI misuse and accidents, prevent the unchecked spread of digital authoritarianism, and prioritize vital research.
     3.1. Promoting Progress, Innovation, and Competition in United States AI Development. (a) The United States’ competitive edge in AI development will be at risk absent concerted United States Government efforts to promote and secure domestic AI progress, innovation, and competition. Although the United States has benefited from a head start in AI, competitors are working hard to catch up, have identified AI as a top strategic priority, and may soon devote resources to research and development that United States AI developers cannot match without appropriately supportive Government policies and action. It is therefore the policy of the United States Government to enhance innovation and competition by bolstering key drivers of AI progress, such as technical talent and computational power.
     (b) It is the policy of the United States Government that advancing the lawful ability of noncitizens highly skilled in AI and related fields to enter and work in the United States constitutes a national security priority. Today, the unparalleled United States AI industry rests in substantial part on the insights of brilliant scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs who moved to the United States in pursuit of academic, social, and economic opportunity. Preserving and expanding United States talent advantages requires developing talent at home and continuing to attract and retain top international minds.
     (c) Consistent with these goals:
(i)    On an ongoing basis, the Department of State, the Department of Defense (DOD), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shall each use all available legal authorities to assist in attracting and rapidly bringing to the United States individuals with relevant technical expertise who would improve United States competitiveness in AI and related fields, such as semiconductor design and production. These activities shall include all appropriate vetting of these individuals and shall be consistent with all appropriate risk mitigation measures. This tasking is consistent with and additive to the taskings on attracting AI talent in section 5 of Executive Order 14110.
(ii)   Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers shall prepare an analysis of the AI talent market in the United States and overseas, to the extent that reliable data is available.
(iii) Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of the National Economic Council shall coordinate an economic assessment of the relative competitive advantage of the United States private sector AI ecosystem, the key sources of the United States private sector’s competitive advantage, and possible risks to that position, and shall recommend policies to mitigate them. The assessment could include areas including (1) the design, manufacture, and packaging of chips critical in AI-related activities; (2) the availability of capital; (3) the availability of workers highly skilled in AI-related fields; (4) computational resources and the associated electricity requirements; and (5) technological platforms or institutions with the requisite scale of capital and data resources for frontier AI model development, as well as possible other factors.
(iv)   Within 90 days of the date of this memorandum, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA) shall convene appropriate executive departments and agencies (agencies) to explore actions for prioritizing and streamlining administrative processing operations for all visa applicants working with sensitive technologies. Doing so shall assist with streamlined processing of highly skilled applicants in AI and other critical and emerging technologies. This effort shall explore options for ensuring the adequate resourcing of such operations and narrowing the criteria that trigger secure advisory opinion requests for such applicants, as consistent with national security objectives.
     (d) The current paradigm of AI development depends heavily on computational resources. To retain its lead in AI, the United States must continue developing the world’s most sophisticated AI semiconductors and constructing its most advanced AI-dedicated computational infrastructure.
     (e) Consistent with these goals:
(i)    DOD, the Department of Energy (DOE) (including national laboratories), and the Intelligence Community (IC) shall, when planning for and constructing or renovating computational facilities, consider the applicability of large-scale AI to their mission. Where appropriate, agencies shall design and build facilities capable of harnessing frontier AI for relevant scientific research domains and intelligence analysis. Those investments shall be consistent with the Federal Mission Resilience Strategy adopted in Executive Order 13961 of December 7, 2020 (Governance and Integration of Federal Mission Resilience).
(ii)   On an ongoing basis, the National Science Foundation (NSF) shall, consistent with its authorities, use the National AI Research Resource (NAIRR) pilot project and any future NAIRR efforts to distribute computational resources, data, and other critical assets for AI development to a diverse array of actors that otherwise would lack access to such capabilities — such as universities, nonprofits, and independent researchers (including trusted international collaborators) — to ensure that AI research in the United States remains competitive and innovative. This tasking is consistent with the NAIRR pilot assigned in section 5 of Executive Order 14110.
(iii) Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, DOE shall launch a pilot project to evaluate the performance and efficiency of federated AI and data sources for frontier AI-scale training, fine-tuning, and inference.
(iv)   The Office of the White House Chief of Staff, in coordination with DOE and other relevant agencies, shall coordinate efforts to streamline permitting, approvals, and incentives for the construction of AI-enabling infrastructure, as well as surrounding assets supporting the resilient operation of this infrastructure, such as clean energy generation, power transmission lines, and high-capacity fiber data links. These efforts shall include coordination, collaboration, consultation, and partnership with State, local, Tribal, and territorial governments, as appropriate, and shall be consistent with the United States’ goals for managing climate risks.
(v)    The Department of State, DOD, DOE, the IC, and the Department of Commerce (Commerce) shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, use existing authorities to make public investments and encourage private investments in strategic domestic and foreign AI technologies and adjacent fields. These agencies shall assess the need for new authorities for the purposes of facilitating public and private investment in AI and adjacent capabilities.
     3.2. Protecting United States AI from Foreign Intelligence Threats. (a) In addition to pursuing industrial strategies that support their respective AI industries, foreign states almost certainly aim to obtain and repurpose the fruits of AI innovation in the United States to serve their national security goals. Historically, such competitors have employed techniques including research collaborations, investment schemes, insider threats, and advanced cyber espionage to collect and exploit United States scientific insights. It is the policy of the United States Government to protect United States industry, civil society, and academic AI intellectual property and related infrastructure from foreign intelligence threats to maintain a lead in foundational capabilities and, as necessary, to provide appropriate Government assistance to relevant non-government entities.
     (b) Consistent with these goals:
(i)   Within 90 days of the date of this memorandum, the National Security Council (NSC) staff and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) shall review the President’s Intelligence Priorities and the National Intelligence Priorities Framework consistent with National Security Memorandum 12 of July 12, 2022 (The President’s Intelligence Priorities), and make recommendations to ensure that such priorities improve identification and assessment of foreign intelligence threats to the United States AI ecosystem and closely related enabling sectors, such as those involved in semiconductor design and production.
(ii) Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, and on an ongoing basis thereafter, ODNI, in coordination with DOD, the Department of Justice (DOJ), Commerce, DOE, DHS, and other IC elements as appropriate, shall identify critical nodes in the AI supply chain, and develop a list of the most plausible avenues through which these nodes could be disrupted or compromised by foreign actors. On an ongoing basis, these agencies shall take all steps, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to reduce such risks.
     (c) Foreign actors may also seek to obtain United States intellectual property through gray-zone methods, such as technology transfer and data localization requirements. AI-related intellectual property often includes critical technical artifacts (CTAs) that would substantially lower the costs of recreating, attaining, or using powerful AI capabilities. The United States Government must guard against these risks.
     (d) Consistent with these goals:
(i) In furtherance of Executive Order 14083 of September 15, 2022 (Ensuring Robust Consideration of Evolving National Security Risks by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States), the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States shall, as appropriate, consider whether a covered transaction involves foreign actor access to proprietary information on AI training techniques, algorithmic improvements, hardware advances, CTAs, or other proprietary insights that shed light on how to create and effectively use powerful AI systems.
     3.3. Managing Risks to AI Safety, Security, and Trustworthiness. (a) Current and near-future AI systems could pose significant safety, security, and trustworthiness risks, including those stemming from deliberate misuse and accidents. Across many technological domains, the United States has historically led the world not only in advancing capabilities, but also in developing the tests, standards, and norms that underpin reliable and beneficial global adoption. The United States approach to AI should be no different, and proactively constructing testing infrastructure to assess and mitigate AI risks will be essential to realizing AI’s positive potential and to preserving United States AI leadership.
     (b) It is the policy of the United States Government to pursue new technical and policy tools that address the potential challenges posed by AI. These tools include processes for reliably testing AI models’ applicability to harmful tasks and deeper partnerships with institutions in industry, academia, and civil society capable of advancing research related to AI safety, security, and trustworthiness.
     (c) Commerce, acting through the AI Safety Institute (AISI) within the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), shall serve as the primary United States Government point of contact with private sector AI developers to facilitate voluntary pre- and post-public deployment testing for safety, security, and trustworthiness of frontier AI models. In coordination with relevant agencies as appropriate, Commerce shall establish an enduring capability to lead voluntary unclassified pre-deployment safety testing of frontier AI models on behalf of the United States Government, including assessments of risks relating to cybersecurity, biosecurity, chemical weapons, system autonomy, and other risks as appropriate (not including nuclear risk, the assessment of which shall be led by DOE). Voluntary unclassified safety testing shall also, as appropriate, address risks to human rights, civil rights, and civil liberties, such as those related to privacy, discrimination and bias, freedom of expression, and the safety of individuals and groups. Other agencies, as identified in subsection 3.3(f) of this section, shall establish enduring capabilities to perform complementary voluntary classified testing in appropriate areas of expertise. The directives set forth in this subsection are consistent with broader taskings on AI safety in section 4 of Executive Order 14110, and provide additional clarity on agencies’ respective roles and responsibilities.
     (d) Nothing in this subsection shall inhibit agencies from performing their own evaluations of AI systems, including tests performed before those systems are released to the public, for the purposes of evaluating suitability for that agency’s acquisition and procurement. AISI’s responsibilities do not extend to the evaluation of AI systems for the potential use by the United States Government for national security purposes; those responsibilities lie with agencies considering such use, as outlined in subsection 4.2(e) of this memorandum and the associated framework described in that subsection.
     (e) Consistent with these goals, Commerce, acting through AISI within NIST, shall take the following actions to aid in the evaluation of current and near-future AI systems:
(i)    Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum and subject to private sector cooperation, AISI shall pursue voluntary preliminary testing of at least two frontier AI models prior to their public deployment or release to evaluate capabilities that might pose a threat to national security. This testing shall assess models’ capabilities to aid offensive cyber operations, accelerate development of biological and/or chemical weapons, autonomously carry out malicious behavior, automate development and deployment of other models with such capabilities, and give rise to other risks identified by AISI. AISI shall share feedback with the APNSA, interagency counterparts as appropriate, and the respective model developers regarding the results of risks identified during such testing and any appropriate mitigations prior to deployment.
(ii)   Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, AISI shall issue guidance for AI developers on how to test, evaluate, and manage risks to safety, security, and trustworthiness arising from dual-use foundation models, building on guidelines issued pursuant to subsection 4.1(a) of Executive Order 14110. AISI shall issue guidance on topics including:
(A) How to measure capabilities that are relevant to the risk that AI models could enable the development of biological and chemical weapons or the automation of offensive cyber operations;
(B) How to address societal risks, such as the misuse of models to harass or impersonate individuals;
(C) How to develop mitigation measures to prevent malicious or improper use of models;
(D) How to test the efficacy of safety and security mitigations; and
(E) How to apply risk management practices throughout the development and deployment lifecycle (pre-development, development, and deployment/release).
(iii) Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, AISI, in consultation with other agencies as appropriate, shall develop or recommend benchmarks or other methods for assessing AI systems’ capabilities and limitations in science, mathematics, code generation, and general reasoning, as well as other categories of activity that AISI deems relevant to assessing general-purpose capabilities likely to have a bearing on national security and public safety.
(iv)   In the event that AISI or another agency determines that a dual-use foundation model’s capabilities could be used to harm public safety significantly, AISI shall serve as the primary point of contact through which the United States Government communicates such findings and any associated recommendations regarding risk mitigation to the developer of the model.
(v)    Within 270 days of the date of this memorandum, and at least annually thereafter, AISI shall submit to the President, through the APNSA, and provide to other interagency counterparts as appropriate, at minimum one report that shall include the following:
(A) A summary of findings from AI safety assessments of frontier AI models that have been conducted by or shared with AISI;
(B) A summary of whether AISI deemed risk mitigation necessary to resolve any issues identified in the assessments, along with conclusions regarding any mitigations’ efficacy; and
(C) A summary of the adequacy of the science-based tools and methods used to inform such assessments.
     (f) Consistent with these goals, other agencies specified below shall take the following actions, in coordination with Commerce, acting through AISI within NIST, to provide classified sector-specific evaluations of current and near-future AI systems for cyber, nuclear, and radiological risks:
(i)    All agencies that conduct or fund safety testing and evaluations of AI systems shall share the results of such evaluations with AISI within 30 days of their completion, consistent with applicable protections for classified and controlled information.
(ii)   Within 120 days of the date of this memorandum, the National Security Agency (NSA), acting through its AI Security Center (AISC) and in coordination with AISI, shall develop the capability to perform rapid systematic classified testing of AI models’ capacity to detect, generate, and/or exacerbate offensive cyber threats. Such tests shall assess the degree to which AI systems, if misused, could accelerate offensive cyber operations.
(iii) Within 120 days of the date of this memorandum, DOE, acting primarily through the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and in close coordination with AISI and NSA, shall seek to develop the capability to perform rapid systematic testing of AI models’ capacity to generate or exacerbate nuclear and radiological risks. This initiative shall involve the development and maintenance of infrastructure capable of running classified and unclassified tests, including using restricted data and relevant classified threat information. This initiative shall also feature the creation and regular updating of automated evaluations, the development of an interface for enabling human-led red-teaming, and the establishment of technical and legal tooling necessary for facilitating the rapid and secure transfer of United States Government, open-weight, and proprietary models to these facilities. As part of this initiative:
(A) Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, DOE shall use the capability described in subsection 3.3(f)(iii) of this section to complete initial evaluations of the radiological and nuclear knowledge, capabilities, and implications of a frontier AI model no more than 30 days after the model has been made available to NNSA at an appropriate classification level. These evaluations shall involve tests of AI systems both without significant modifications and, as appropriate, with fine-tuning or other modifications that could enhance performance.
(B) Within 270 days of the date of this memorandum, and at least annually thereafter, DOE shall submit to the President, through the APNSA, at minimum one assessment that shall include the following:
(1) A concise summary of the findings of each AI model evaluation for radiological and nuclear risk, described in subsection 3.3(f)(iii)(A) of this section, that DOE has performed in the preceding 12 months;
(2) A recommendation as to whether corrective action is necessary to resolve any issues identified in the evaluations, including but not limited to actions necessary for attaining and sustaining compliance conditions appropriate to safeguard and prevent unauthorized disclosure of restricted data or other classified information, pursuant to the Atomic Energy Act of 1954; and
(3) A concise statement regarding the adequacy of the science-based tools and methods used to inform the evaluations.
(iv)   On an ongoing basis, DHS, acting through the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), shall continue to fulfill its responsibilities with respect to the application of AISI guidance, as identified in National Security Memorandum 22 of April 30, 2024 (Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience), and section 4 of Executive Order 14110.
     (g) Consistent with these goals, and to reduce the chemical and biological risks that could emerge from AI:
(i)    The United States Government shall advance classified evaluations of advanced AI models’ capacity to generate or exacerbate deliberate chemical and biological threats. As part of this initiative:
(A) Within 210 days of the date of this memorandum, DOE, DHS, and AISI, in consultation with DOD and other relevant agencies, shall coordinate to develop a roadmap for future classified evaluations of advanced AI models’ capacity to generate or exacerbate deliberate chemical and biological threats, to be shared with the APNSA. This roadmap shall consider the scope, scale, and priority of classified evaluations; proper safeguards to ensure that evaluations and simulations are not misconstrued as offensive capability development; proper safeguards for testing sensitive and/or classified information; and sustainable implementation of evaluation methodologies.
(B) On an ongoing basis, DHS shall provide expertise, threat and risk information, and other technical support to assess the feasibility of proposed biological and chemical classified evaluations; interpret and contextualize evaluation results; and advise relevant agencies on potential risk mitigations.
(C) Within 270 days of the date of this memorandum, DOE shall establish a pilot project to provide expertise, infrastructure, and facilities capable of conducting classified tests in this area.
(ii)   Within 240 days of the date of this memorandum, DOD, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), DOE (including national laboratories), DHS, NSF, and other agencies pursuing the development of AI systems substantially trained on biological and chemical data shall, as appropriate, support efforts to utilize high-performance computing resources and AI systems to enhance biosafety and biosecurity. These efforts shall include:
(A) The development of tools for screening in silico chemical and biological research and technology;
(B) The creation of algorithms for nucleic acid synthesis screening;
(C) The construction of high-assurance software foundations for novel biotechnologies;
(D) The screening of complete orders or data streams from cloud labs and biofoundries; and
(E) The development of risk mitigation strategies such as medical countermeasures.
(iii) After the publication of biological and chemical safety guidance by AISI outlined in subsection 3.3(e) of this section, all agencies that directly develop relevant dual-use foundation AI models that are made available to the public and are substantially trained on biological or chemical data shall incorporate this guidance into their agency’s practices, as appropriate and feasible.
(iv)   Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, NSF, in coordination with DOD, Commerce (acting through AISI within NIST), HHS, DOE, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and other relevant agencies, shall seek to convene academic research institutions and scientific publishers to develop voluntary best practices and standards for publishing computational biological and chemical models, data sets, and approaches, including those that use AI and that could contribute to the production of knowledge, information, technologies, and products that could be misused to cause harm. This is in furtherance of the activities described in subsections 4.4 and 4.7 of Executive Order 14110.
(v)    Within 540 days of the date of this memorandum, and informed by the United States Government Policy for Oversight of Dual Use Research of Concern and Pathogens with Enhanced Pandemic Potential, OSTP, NSC staff, and the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, in consultation with relevant agencies and external stakeholders as appropriate, shall develop guidance promoting the benefits of and mitigating the risks associated with in silico biological and chemical research.
     (h) Agencies shall take the following actions to improve foundational understanding of AI safety, security, and trustworthiness:
(i)   DOD, Commerce, DOE, DHS, ODNI, NSF, NSA, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, prioritize research on AI safety and trustworthiness. As appropriate and consistent with existing authorities, they shall pursue partnerships as appropriate with leading public sector, industry, civil society, academic, and other institutions with expertise in these domains, with the objective of accelerating technical and socio-technical progress in AI safety and trustworthiness. This work may include research on interpretability, formal methods, privacy enhancing technologies, techniques to address risks to civil liberties and human rights, human-AI interaction, and/or the socio-technical effects of detecting and labeling synthetic and authentic content (for example, to address the malicious use of AI to generate misleading videos or images, including those of a strategically damaging or non-consensual intimate nature, of political or public figures).
(ii) DOD, Commerce, DOE, DHS, ODNI, NSF, NSA, and NGA shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, prioritize research to improve the security, robustness, and reliability of AI systems and controls. These entities shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, partner with other agencies, industry, civil society, and academia. Where appropriate, DOD, DHS (acting through CISA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and NSA (acting through AISC) shall publish unclassified guidance concerning known AI cybersecurity vulnerabilities and threats; best practices for avoiding, detecting, and mitigating such issues during model training and deployment; and the integration of AI into other software systems. This work shall include an examination of the role of and vulnerabilities potentially caused by AI systems used in critical infrastructure.
     (i) Agencies shall take actions to protect classified and controlled information, given the potential risks posed by AI:
(i) In the course of regular updates to policies and procedures, DOD, DOE, and the IC shall consider how analysis enabled by AI tools may affect decisions related to declassification of material, standards for sufficient anonymization, and similar activities, as well as the robustness of existing operational security and equity controls to protect classified or controlled information, given that AI systems have demonstrated the capacity to extract previously inaccessible insight from redacted and anonymized data.
Sec. 4. Responsibly Harnessing AI to Achieve National Security Objectives. (a) It is the policy of the United States Government to act decisively to enable the effective and responsible use of AI in furtherance of its national security mission. Achieving global leadership in national security applications of AI will require effective partnership with organizations outside Government, as well as significant internal transformation, including strengthening effective oversight and governance functions.
     4.1. Enabling Effective and Responsible Use of AI. (a) It is the policy of the United States Government to adapt its partnerships, policies, and infrastructure to use AI capabilities appropriately, effectively, and responsibly. These modifications must balance each agency’s unique oversight, data, and application needs with the substantial benefits associated with sharing powerful AI and computational resources across the United States Government. Modifications must also be grounded in a clear understanding of the United States Government’s comparative advantages relative to industry, civil society, and academia, and must leverage offerings from external collaborators and contractors as appropriate. The United States Government must make the most of the rich United States AI ecosystem by incentivizing innovation in safe, secure, and trustworthy AI and promoting industry competition when selecting contractors, grant recipients, and research collaborators. Finally, the United States Government must address important technical and policy considerations in ways that ensure the integrity and interoperability needed to pursue its objectives while protecting human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and safety.
     (b) The United States Government needs an updated set of Government-wide procedures for attracting, hiring, developing, and retaining AI and AI-enabling talent for national security purposes.
     (c) Consistent with these goals:
(i)   In the course of regular legal, policy, and compliance framework reviews, the Department of State, DOD, DOJ, DOE, DHS, and IC elements shall revise, as appropriate, their hiring and retention policies and strategies to accelerate responsible AI adoption. Agencies shall account for technical talent needs required to adopt AI and integrate it into their missions and other roles necessary to use AI effectively, such as AI-related governance, ethics, and policy positions. These policies and strategies shall identify financial, organizational, and security hurdles, as well as potential mitigations consistent with applicable law. Such measures shall also include consideration of programs to attract experts with relevant technical expertise from industry, academia, and civil society — including scholarship for service programs — and similar initiatives that would expose Government employees to relevant non-government entities in ways that build technical, organizational, and cultural familiarity with the AI industry. These policies and strategies shall use all available authorities, including expedited security clearance procedures as appropriate, in order to address the shortfall of AI-relevant talent within Government.
(ii) Within 120 days of the date of this memorandum, the Department of State, DOD, DOJ, DOE, DHS, and IC elements shall each, in consultation with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), identify education and training opportunities to increase the AI competencies of their respective workforces, via initiatives which may include training and skills-based hiring.
     (d) To accelerate the use of AI in service of its national security mission, the United States Government needs coordinated and effective acquisition and procurement systems. This will require an enhanced capacity to assess, define, and articulate AI-related requirements for national security purposes, as well as improved accessibility for AI companies that lack significant prior experience working with the United States Government.
     (e) Consistent with these goals:
(i)    Within 30 days of the date of this memorandum, DOD and ODNI, in coordination with OMB and other agencies as appropriate, shall establish a working group to address issues involving procurement of AI by DOD and IC elements and for use on NSS. As appropriate, the working group shall consult the Director of the NSA, as the National Manager for NSS, in developing recommendations for acquiring and procuring AI for use on NSS.
(ii)   Within 210 days of the date of this memorandum, the working group described in subsection 4.1(e)(i) of this section shall provide written recommendations to the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council (FARC) regarding changes to existing regulations and guidance, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to promote the following objectives for AI procured by DOD and IC elements and for use on NSS:
(A) Ensuring objective metrics to measure and promote the safety, security, and trustworthiness of AI systems;
(B) Accelerating the acquisition and procurement process for AI, consistent with the Federal Acquisition Regulation, while maintaining appropriate checks to mitigate safety risks;
(C) Simplifying processes such that companies without experienced contracting teams may meaningfully compete for relevant contracts, to ensure that the United States Government has access to a wide range of AI systems and that the AI marketplace is competitive;
(D) Structuring competitions to encourage robust participation and achieve best value to the Government, such as by including requirements that promote interoperability and prioritizing the technical capability of vendors when evaluating offers;
(E) Accommodating shared use of AI to the greatest degree possible and as appropriate across relevant agencies; and
(F) Ensuring that agencies with specific authorities and missions may implement other policies, where appropriate and necessary.
(iii) The FARC shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, consider proposing amendments to the Federal Acquisition Regulation to codify recommendations provided by the working group pursuant to subsection 4.1(e)(ii) of this section that may have Government-wide application.
(iv)   DOD and ODNI shall seek to engage on an ongoing basis with diverse United States private sector stakeholders — including AI technology and defense companies and members of the United States investor community — to identify and better understand emerging capabilities that would benefit or otherwise affect the United States national security mission.
     (f) The United States Government needs clear, modernized, and robust policies and procedures that enable the rapid development and national security use of AI, consistent with human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, safety, and other democratic values.
     (g) Consistent with these goals:
(i)    DOD and the IC shall, in consultation with DOJ as appropriate, review their respective legal, policy, civil liberties, privacy, and compliance frameworks, including international legal obligations, and, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, seek to develop or revise policies and procedures to enable the effective and responsible use of AI, accounting for the following:
(A) Issues raised by the acquisition, use, retention, dissemination, and disposal of models trained on datasets that include personal information traceable to specific United States persons, publicly available information, commercially available information, and intellectual property, consistent with section 9 of Executive Order 14110;
(B) Guidance that shall be developed by DOJ, in consultation with DOD and ODNI, regarding constitutional considerations raised by the IC’s acquisition and use of AI;
(C) Challenges associated with classification and compartmentalization;
(D) Algorithmic bias, inconsistent performance, inaccurate outputs, and other known AI failure modes;
(E) Threats to analytic integrity when employing AI tools;
(F) Risks posed by a lack of safeguards that protect human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and other democratic values, as addressed in further detail in subsection 4.2 of this section;
(G) Barriers to sharing AI models and related insights with allies and partners; and
(H) Potential inconsistencies between AI use and the implementation of international legal obligations and commitments.
(ii)   As appropriate, the policies described in subsection 4.1(g) of this section shall be consistent with direction issued by the Committee on NSS and DOD governing the security of AI used on NSS, policies issued by the Director of National Intelligence governing adoption of AI by the IC, and direction issued by OMB governing the security of AI used on non-NSS.
(iii) On an ongoing basis, each agency that uses AI on NSS shall, in consultation with ODNI and DOD, take all steps appropriate and consistent with applicable law to accelerate responsible approval of AI systems for use on NSS and accreditation of NSS that use AI systems.
     (h) The United States’ network of allies and partners confers significant advantages over competitors. Consistent with the 2022 National Security Strategy or any successor strategies, the United States Government must invest in and proactively enable the co-development and co-deployment of AI capabilities with select allies and partners.
     (i) Consistent with these goals:
(i) Within 150 days of the date of this memorandum, DOD, in coordination with the Department of State and ODNI, shall evaluate the feasibility of advancing, increasing, and promoting co-development and shared use of AI and AI-enabled assets with select allies and partners. This evaluation shall include:
(A) A potential list of foreign states with which such co-development or co-deployment may be feasible;
(B) A list of bilateral and multilateral fora for potential outreach;
(C) Potential co-development and co-deployment concepts;
(D) Proposed classification-appropriate testing vehicles for co-developed AI capabilities; and
(E) Considerations for existing programs, agreements, or arrangements to use as foundations for future co-development and co-deployment of AI capabilities.
     (j) The United States Government needs improved internal coordination with respect to its use of and approach to AI on NSS in order to ensure interoperability and resource sharing consistent with applicable law, and to reap the generality and economies of scale offered by frontier AI models.
     (k) Consistent with these goals:
(i) On an ongoing basis, DOD and ODNI shall issue or revise relevant guidance to improve consolidation and interoperability across AI functions on NSS. This guidance shall seek to ensure that the United States Government can coordinate and share AI-related resources effectively, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law. Such work shall include:
(A) Recommending agency organizational practices to improve AI research and deployment activities that span multiple national security institutions. In order to encourage AI adoption for the purpose of national security, these measures shall aim to create consistency to the greatest extent possible across the revised practices.
(B) Steps that enable consolidated research, development, and procurement for general-purpose AI systems and supporting infrastructure, such that multiple agencies can share access to these tools to the extent consistent with applicable law, while still allowing for appropriate controls on sensitive data.
(C) Aligning AI-related national security policies and procedures across agencies, as practicable and appropriate, and consistent with applicable law.
(D) Developing policies and procedures, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to share information across DOD and the IC when an AI system developed, deployed, or used by a contractor demonstrates risks related to safety, security, and trustworthiness, including to human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, or privacy.
     4.2. Strengthening AI Governance and Risk Management. (a) As the United States Government moves swiftly to adopt AI in support of its national security mission, it must continue taking active steps to uphold human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and safety; ensure that AI is used in a manner consistent with the President’s authority as Commander in Chief to decide when to order military operations in the Nation’s defense; and ensure that military use of AI capabilities is accountable, including through such use during military operations within a responsible human chain of command and control. Accordingly, the United States Government must develop and implement robust AI governance and risk management practices to ensure that its AI innovation aligns with democratic values, updating policy guidance where necessary. In light of the diverse authorities and missions across covered agencies with a national security mission and the rapid rate of ongoing technological change, such AI governance and risk management frameworks shall be:
(i)    Structured, to the extent permitted by law, such that they can adapt to future opportunities and risks posed by new technical developments;
(ii)   As consistent across agencies as is practicable and appropriate in order to enable interoperability, while respecting unique authorities and missions;
(iii) Designed to enable innovation that advances United States national security objectives;
(iv)   As transparent to the public as practicable and appropriate, while protecting classified or controlled information;
(v)    Developed and applied in a manner and with means to integrate protections, controls, and safeguards for human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and safety where relevant; and
(vi)   Designed to reflect United States leadership in establishing broad international support for rules and norms that reinforce the United States’ approach to AI governance and risk management.
     (b) Covered agencies shall develop and use AI responsibly, consistent with United States law and policies, democratic values, and international law and treaty obligations, including international humanitarian and human rights law. All agency officials retain their existing authorities and responsibilities established in other laws and policies.
     (c) Consistent with these goals:
(i) Heads of covered agencies shall, consistent with their authorities, monitor, assess, and mitigate risks directly tied to their agency’s development and use of AI. Such risks may result from reliance on AI outputs to inform, influence, decide, or execute agency decisions or actions, when used in a defense, intelligence, or law enforcement context, and may impact human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, safety, national security, and democratic values. These risks from the use of AI include the following:
(A) Risks to physical safety: AI use may pose unintended risks to human life or property.
(B) Privacy harms: AI design, development, and operation may result in harm, embarrassment, unfairness, and prejudice to individuals.
(C) Discrimination and bias: AI use may lead to unlawful discrimination and harmful bias, resulting in, for instance, inappropriate surveillance and profiling, among other harms.
(D) Inappropriate use: operators using AI systems may not fully understand the capabilities and limitations of these technologies, including systems used in conflicts. Such unfamiliarity could impact operators’ ability to exercise appropriate levels of human judgment.
(E) Lack of transparency: agencies may have gaps in documentation of AI development and use, and the public may lack access to information about how AI is used in national security contexts because of the necessity to protect classified or controlled information.
(F) Lack of accountability: training programs and guidance for agency personnel on the proper use of AI systems may not be sufficient, including to mitigate the risk of overreliance on AI systems (such as “automation bias”), and accountability mechanisms may not adequately address possible intentional or negligent misuse of AI-enabled technologies.
(G) Data spillage: AI systems may reveal aspects of their training data — either inadvertently or through deliberate manipulation by malicious actors — and data spillage may result from AI systems trained on classified or controlled information when used on networks where such information is not permitted.
(H) Poor performance: AI systems that are inappropriately or insufficiently trained, used for purposes outside the scope of their training set, or improperly integrated into human workflows may exhibit poor performance, including in ways that result in inconsistent outcomes or unlawful discrimination and harmful bias, or that undermine the integrity of decision-making processes.
(I) Deliberate manipulation and misuse: foreign state competitors and malicious actors may deliberately undermine the accuracy and efficacy of AI systems, or seek to extract sensitive information from such systems.
     (d) The United States Government’s AI governance and risk management policies must keep pace with evolving technology.
     (e) Consistent with these goals:
(i)   An AI framework, entitled “Framework to Advance AI Governance and Risk Management in National Security” (AI Framework), shall further implement this subsection. The AI Framework shall be approved by the NSC Deputies Committee through the process described in National Security Memorandum 2 of February 4, 2021 (Renewing the National Security Council System), or any successor process, and shall be reviewed periodically through that process. This process shall determine whether adjustments are needed to address risks identified in subsection 4.2(c) of this section and other topics covered in the AI Framework. The AI Framework shall serve as a national security-focused counterpart to OMB’s Memorandum M-24-10 of March 28, 2024 (Advancing Governance, Innovation, and Risk Management for Agency Use of Artificial Intelligence), and any successor OMB policies. To the extent feasible, appropriate, and consistent with applicable law, the AI Framework shall be as consistent as possible with these OMB policies and shall be made public.
(ii) The AI Framework described in subsection 4.2(e)(i) of this section and any successor document shall, at a minimum, and to the extent consistent with applicable law, specify the following:
(A) Each covered agency shall have a Chief AI Officer who holds primary responsibility within that agency, in coordination with other responsible officials, for managing the agency’s use of AI, promoting AI innovation within the agency, and managing risks from the agency’s use of AI consistent with subsection 3(b) of OMB Memorandum M-24-10, as practicable.
(B) Covered agencies shall have AI Governance Boards to coordinate and govern AI issues through relevant senior leaders from the agency.
(C) Guidance on AI activities that pose unacceptable levels of risk and that shall be prohibited.
(D) Guidance on AI activities that are “high impact” and require minimum risk management practices, including for high-impact AI use that affects United States Government personnel. Such high-impact activities shall include AI whose output serves as a principal basis for a decision or action that could exacerbate or create significant risks to national security, international norms, human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, safety, or other democratic values. The minimum risk management practices for high-impact AI shall include a mechanism for agencies to assess AI’s expected benefits and potential risks; a mechanism for assessing data quality; sufficient test and evaluation practices; mitigation of unlawful discrimination and harmful bias; human training, assessment, and oversight requirements; ongoing monitoring; and additional safeguards for military service members, the Federal civilian workforce, and individuals who receive an offer of employment from a covered agency.
(E) Covered agencies shall ensure privacy, civil liberties, and safety officials are integrated into AI governance and oversight structures. Such officials shall report findings to the heads of agencies and oversight officials, as appropriate, using existing reporting channels when feasible.
(F) Covered agencies shall ensure that there are sufficient training programs, guidance, and accountability processes to enable proper use of AI systems.
(G) Covered agencies shall maintain an annual inventory of their high-impact AI use and AI systems and provide updates on this inventory to agency heads and the APNSA.
(H) Covered agencies shall ensure that whistleblower protections are sufficient to account for issues that may arise in the development and use of AI and AI systems.
(I) Covered agencies shall develop and implement waiver processes for high-impact AI use that balance robust implementation of risk mitigation measures in this memorandum and the AI Framework with the need to utilize AI to preserve and advance critical agency missions and operations.
(J) Covered agencies shall implement cybersecurity guidance or direction associated with AI systems issued by the National Manager for NSS to mitigate the risks posed by malicious actors exploiting new technologies, and to enable interoperability of AI across agencies. Within 150 days of the date of this memorandum, and periodically thereafter, the National Manager for NSS shall issue minimum cybersecurity guidance and/or direction for AI used as a component of NSS, which shall be incorporated into AI governance guidance detailed in subsection 4.2(g)(i) of this section.
     (f) The United States Government needs guidance specifically regarding the use of AI on NSS.
     (g) Consistent with these goals:
(i) Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, the heads of the Department of State, the Department of the Treasury, DOD, DOJ, Commerce, DOE, DHS, ODNI (acting on behalf of the 18 IC elements), and any other covered agency that uses AI as part of a NSS (Department Heads) shall issue or update guidance to their components/sub-agencies on AI governance and risk management for NSS, aligning with the policies in this subsection, the AI Framework, and other applicable policies. Department Heads shall review their respective guidance on an annual basis, and update such guidance as needed. This guidance, and any updates thereto, shall be provided to the APNSA prior to issuance. This guidance shall be unclassified and made available to the public to the extent feasible and appropriate, though it may have a classified annex. Department Heads shall seek to harmonize their guidance, and the APNSA shall convene an interagency meeting at least annually for the purpose of harmonizing Department Heads’ guidance on AI governance and risk management to the extent practicable and appropriate while respecting the agencies’ diverse authorities and missions. Harmonization shall be pursued in the following areas:
(A) Implementation of the risk management practices for high-impact AI;
(B) AI and AI system standards and activities, including as they relate to training, testing, accreditation, and security and cybersecurity; and
(C) Any other issues that affect interoperability for AI and AI systems.
Sec. 5. Fostering a Stable, Responsible, and Globally Beneficial International AI Governance Landscape. (a) Throughout its history, the United States has played an essential role in shaping the international order to enable the safe, secure, and trustworthy global adoption of new technologies while also protecting democratic values. These contributions have ranged from establishing nonproliferation regimes for biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons to setting the foundations for multi-stakeholder governance of the Internet. Like these precedents, AI will require new global norms and coordination mechanisms, which the United States Government must maintain an active role in crafting.
     (b) It is the policy of the United States Government that United States international engagement on AI shall support and facilitate improvements to the safety, security, and trustworthiness of AI systems worldwide; promote democratic values, including respect for human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and safety; prevent the misuse of AI in national security contexts; and promote equitable access to AI’s benefits. The United States Government shall advance international agreements, collaborations, and other substantive and norm-setting initiatives in alignment with this policy.
     (c) Consistent with these goals:
(i) Within 120 days of the date of this memorandum, the Department of State, in coordination with DOD, Commerce, DHS, the United States Mission to the United Nations (USUN), and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), shall produce a strategy for the advancement of international AI governance norms in line with safe, secure, and trustworthy AI, and democratic values, including human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy. This strategy shall cover bilateral and multilateral engagement and relations with allies and partners. It shall also include guidance on engaging with competitors, and it shall outline an approach to working in international institutions such as the United Nations and the Group of 7 (G7), as well as technical organizations. The strategy shall:
(A) Develop and promote internationally shared definitions, norms, expectations, and standards, consistent with United States policy and existing efforts, which will promote safe, secure, and trustworthy AI development and use around the world. These norms shall be as consistent as possible with United States domestic AI governance (including Executive Order 14110 and OMB Memorandum M-24-10), the International Code of Conduct for Organizations Developing Advanced AI Systems released by the G7 in October 2023, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Principles on AI, United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/78/L.49, and other United States-supported relevant international frameworks (such as the Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of AI and Autonomy) and instruments. By discouraging misuse and encouraging appropriate safeguards, these norms and standards shall aim to reduce the likelihood of AI causing harm or having adverse impacts on human rights, democracy, or the rule of law.
(B) Promote the responsible and ethical use of AI in national security contexts in accordance with democratic values and in compliance with applicable international law. The strategy shall advance the norms and practices established by this memorandum and measures endorsed in the Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of AI and Autonomy.
Sec. 6. Ensuring Effective Coordination, Execution, and Reporting of AI Policy. (a) The United States Government must work in a closely coordinated manner to make progress on effective and responsible AI adoption. Given the speed with which AI technology evolves, the United States Government must learn quickly, adapt to emerging strategic developments, adopt new capabilities, and confront novel risks.
     (b) Consistent with these goals:
(i)    Within 270 days of the date of this memorandum, and annually thereafter for at least the next 5 years, the heads of the Department of State, DOD, Commerce, DOE, ODNI (acting on behalf of the IC), USUN, and USAID shall each submit a report to the President, through the APNSA, that offers a detailed accounting of their activities in response to their taskings in all sections of this memorandum, including this memorandum’s classified annex, and that provides a plan for further action. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), NSA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and NGA shall submit reports on their activities to ODNI for inclusion in full as an appendix to ODNI’s report regarding IC activities. NGA, NSA, and DIA shall submit their reports as well to DOD for inclusion in full as an appendix to DOD’s report.
(ii)   Within 45 days of the date of this memorandum, the Chief AI Officers of the Department of State, DOD, DOJ, DOE, DHS, OMB, ODNI, CIA, DIA, NSA, and NGA, as well as appropriate technical staff, shall form an AI National Security Coordination Group (Coordination Group). Any Chief AI Officer of an agency that is a member of the Committee on National Security Systems may also join the Coordination Group as a full member. The Coordination Group shall be co-chaired by the Chief AI Officers of ODNI and DOD. The Coordination Group shall consider ways to harmonize policies relating to the development, accreditation, acquisition, use, and evaluation of AI on NSS. This work could include development of:
(A) Enhanced training and awareness to ensure that agencies prioritize the most effective AI systems, responsibly develop and use AI, and effectively evaluate AI systems;
(B) Best practices to identify and mitigate foreign intelligence risks and human rights considerations associated with AI procurement;
(C) Best practices to ensure interoperability between agency deployments of AI, to include data interoperability and data sharing agreements, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law;
(D) A process to maintain, update, and disseminate such trainings and best practices on an ongoing basis;
(E) AI-related policy initiatives to address regulatory gaps implicated by executive branch-wide policy development processes; and
(F) An agile process to increase the speed of acquisitions, validation, and delivery of AI capabilities, consistent with applicable law.
(iii) Within 90 days of the date of this memorandum, the Coordination Group described in subsection (b)(ii) of this section shall establish a National Security AI Executive Talent Committee (Talent Committee) composed of senior AI officials (or designees) from all agencies in the Coordination Group that wish to participate. The Talent Committee shall work to standardize, prioritize, and address AI talent needs and develop an updated set of Government-wide procedures for attracting, hiring, developing, and retaining AI and AI-enabling talent for national security purposes. The Talent Committee shall designate a representative to serve as a member of the AI and Technology Talent Task Force set forth in Executive Order 14110, helping to identify overlapping needs and address shared challenges in hiring.
(iv)   Within 365 days of the date of this memorandum, and annually thereafter for at least the next 5 years, the Coordination Group described in subsection (b)(ii) of this section shall issue a joint report to the APNSA on consolidation and interoperability of AI efforts and systems for the purposes of national security.
     Sec. 7. Definitions. (a) This memorandum uses definitions set forth in section 3 of Executive Order 14110. In addition, for the purposes of this memorandum:
(i)     The term “AI safety” means the mechanisms through which individuals and organizations minimize and mitigate the potential for harm to individuals and society that can result from the malicious use, misapplication, failures, accidents, and unintended behavior of AI models; the systems that integrate them; and the ways in which they are used.
(ii)    The term “AI security” means a set of practices to protect AI systems — including training data, models, abilities, and lifecycles — from cyber and physical attacks, thefts, and damage.
(iii)   The term “covered agencies” means agencies in the Intelligence Community, as well as all agencies as defined in 44 U.S.C. 3502(1) when they use AI as a component of a National Security System, other than the Executive Office of the President.
(iv)    The term “Critical Technical Artifacts” (CTAs) means information, usually specific to a single model or group of related models that, if possessed by someone other than the model developer, would substantially lower the costs of recreating, attaining, or using the model’s capabilities. Under the technical paradigm dominant in the AI industry today, the model weights of a trained AI system constitute CTAs, as do, in some cases, associated training data and code. Future paradigms may rely on different CTAs.
(v)     The term “frontier AI model” means a general-purpose AI system near the cutting-edge of performance, as measured by widely accepted publicly available benchmarks, or similar assessments of reasoning, science, and overall capabilities.
(vi)    The term “Intelligence Community” (IC) has the meaning provided in 50 U.S.C. 3003.
(vii)   The term “open-weight model” means a model that has weights that are widely available, typically through public release.
(viii) The term “United States Government” means all agencies as defined in 44 U.S.C. 3502(1).
     Sec. 8. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this memorandum shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i)   the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
     (b) This memorandum shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
     (c) This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
                              JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.

MIL OSI USA News –

January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: Veteran celebrates birthday and 69 years of SETAF-AF

Source: United States Army

U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Andrew C. Gainey, U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa (SETAF-AF) commanding general, cuts the SETAF-AF 69th anniversary cake alongside the youngest soldier, Pfc. Daely Goodwin, and the oldest soldier, Retired U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Ed Furnish. Gainey was joined by Sgt. Maj. Gabriel Liera, far left, and Magda Miselli, the daughter of Phil Maselli, who served at SETAF-AF for 43 years. Miselli presented a journal belonging to her father, documenting the early history of SETAF-AF during the celebration. The event, held at Caserma Del Din in Vicenza, Italy, Oct. 24, 2024, honored Miselli, Furnish, and other guests. (U.S. Army photo by 1st Lt. Katherine Sibilla (Photo Credit: 1st Lt. Katherine Sibilla) VIEW ORIGINAL

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U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa

VICENZA, Italy — Every year, retired U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Ed Furnish says he gets to celebrate two birthdays—one in September and one in October. The first is his actual birthday; the second is the anniversary of U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa (SETAF-AF) —an organization that holds a special meaning in his life since he was stationed here in 1959, when he arrived as a 17-year-old from a small farm in Indiana.

Now 82 years old, Furnish was the oldest attendee at SETAF-AF’s 69th anniversary and had the honor of cutting the birthday cake alongside the youngest Soldier, Pfc. Daely Goodwin, at the celebration. They were joined by U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Andrew C. Gainey, commanding general of SETAF-AF.

Throughout his military career, Furnish served with SETAF-AF—then called SETAF until 2020—in the logistics division. After retiring from the military, he spent 34 years as a civil servant, living in Vicenza for many of those years working for SETAF-AF and U.S. Army Garrison Italy.

“SETAF means home,” said Furnish. “I married my wife, an Italian from nearby Castelfranco. All three of my children attended school here, and my youngest daughter was born in the hospital on post.”

U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Andrew C. Gainey, commanding general of U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa (SETAF-AF), speaks with Retired U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Ed Furnish prior to the commencement of the SETAF-AF 69th anniversary ceremony, held at Caserma Del Din in Vicenza, Italy, Oct. 24, 2024. Furnish had the honor of cutting SETAF-AF’s 69th anniversary cake alongside Gainey, as the oldest attendee at the celebration. (U.S. Army photo by 1st Lt. Katherine Sibilla) (Photo Credit: 1st Lt. Katherine Sibilla) VIEW ORIGINAL

Over the last eight decades, Furnish has witnessed SETAF-AF evolve, adapting to new missions and expanding its reach across continents. Initially, the unit operated as part of NATO’s defense in Southern Europe, with a particular focus on protecting Italy. When Furnish arrived in Vicenza in 1959, SETAF consisted of 6,000 Soldiers and was divided into three major elements: a headquarters command, missile command and a logistical command. The command spanned three installations in Verona, Vicenza and Livorno.

“I think SETAF started out with a purpose in 1955, and now there’s an even bigger purpose for SETAF-AF. They’re going to keep growing,” Furnish said.

1 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Andrew C. Gainey, commanding general of U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa (SETAF-AF), pays tribute to Retired U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Ed Furnish, who served with SETAF-AF, and Magda Maselli, the daughter of Phil Maselli, who served at SETAF-AF for 43 years, during the SETAF-AF 69th anniversary ceremony at Caserma Del Din in Vicenza, Italy, Oct. 24, 2024. (U.S. Army photo by 1st Lt. Katherine Sibilla) (Photo Credit: 1st Lt. Katherine Sibilla) VIEW ORIGINAL

2 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – A journal belonging to Phil Maselli, which documented the early history of U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa (SETAF-AF), was presented to U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Andrew C. Gainey, commanding general of SETAF-AF during the 69th anniversary ceremony at Caserma Del Din in Vicenza, Italy, Oct. 24, 2024.(U.S. Army photo by 1st Lt. Katherine Sibilla) (Photo Credit: 1st Lt. Katherine Sibilla) VIEW ORIGINAL

He also saw Vicenza evolve from a city recovering from the destruction of World War II to a bustling center of activity. Yet, for Furnish, one thing that has not changed in over 65 years is the core of Italian culture.

“Italy has always had fantastic food and wine—none of that has changed,” he said. “The Italian way of life hasn’t changed either. Life may be faster-paced now, but their culture remains the same as it was when I arrived in 1959.”

During the 69th anniversary ceremony, Furnish joined other U.S. and Italian military dignitaries, including Magda Maselli, the daughter of Phil Maselli, who served SETAF-AF for 43 years. A journal belonging to Phil Maselli, which documented the early history of SETAF-AF, was presented to Gainey during the event.

1 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Andrew C. Gainey, commanding general of U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa (SETAF-AF), pays tribute to Retired U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Ed Furnish, who served with SETAF-AF, and Magda Maselli, the daughter of Phil Maselli, who served SETAF-AF for 43 years, during the SETAF-AF 69th anniversary ceremony at Caserma Del Din in Vicenza, Italy, Oct. 24, 2024.(U.S. Army photo by 1st Lt. Katherine Sibilla) (Photo Credit: 1st Lt. Katherine Sibilla) VIEW ORIGINAL

2 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Magda Maselli, the daughter of Phil Maselli, who served U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa (SETAF-AF), for 43 years, speaks during the SETAF-AF 69th anniversary ceremony at Caserma Del Din in Vicenza, Italy, Oct. 24, 2024. (U.S. Army photo by 1st Lt. Katherine Sibilla) (Photo Credit: 1st Lt. Katherine Sibilla) VIEW ORIGINAL

“We have worked side-by-side with our Italian hosts to promote peace and security,” said Gainey. “I’m proud to be part of that legacy, and today we have an opportunity to honor two individuals whose contributions shaped our shared history.”

Before the cake cutting, Gainey recognized both Furnish and Maselli for their contributions and long-standing service to SETAF-AF.

“I think it’s great that SETAF continues to recognize this every year, showing the younger generation that the tradition is going to carry on,” Furnish concluded.

About SETAF-AF

SETAF-AF provides U.S. Africa Command and U.S. Army Europe and Africa a dedicated headquarters to synchronize Army activities in Africa and scalable crisis-response options in Africa and Europe.

Follow SETAF-AF on: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn & DVIDS

MIL OSI USA News –

January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: Governor Parson Congratulates Major General Levon Cumpton on His Selection for Key National Guard Leadership Position in Europe

Source: US State of Missouri

OCTOBER 24, 2024

Jefferson City — Today, Governor Mike Parson announced that Major General Levon E. Cumpton, The Adjutant General (TAG) of the Missouri National Guard (MONG), was selected to be the U.S. Army Europe and Africa’s Chief of Staff and Deputy Commanding General for the Army National Guard, effective February 2025.

“We congratulate and are excited for Major General Cumpton as he enters this next chapter of his career,” Governor Parson said. “General Cumpton has built an incredibly strong team for the Missouri National Guard. While we will miss his leadership and devotion to our state and nation as TAG, we know our nation’s military is stronger and safer with him in this new role. The Missouri National Guard’s steadfast and dedicated team members will help ensure a smooth transition and continue serving the citizens of our state and nation with excellence.”

“Levon’s efforts, above and beyond the call of duty, and devotion to his home state have helped bring greater opportunity to thousands of Missourians. Teresa and I thank him for his service and wish him, along with his wife Linda, the best in this new role and all that comes next,” Governor Parson continued.

“It’s an absolute honor to serve as Missouri’s TAG; I was humbled to be selected by Governor Parson. I continue to be humbled to have the continued confidence and support of our state and national leadership to serve in this new role supporting our U.S. and Allies operations in these critical overseas theaters,” General Cumpton said. “My wife, Linda, and I are blessed to be on this team. To our Missouri National Guard Airmen and Soldiers, thank you for who you are and what you do for our state and nation as you continue to Train, Fight, and Win while Taking Care of Each Other as One Team. Linda and I are moving overseas, but our roots are in Missouri. We love this state, we love our country. Keep Winning.”

General Cumpton has served as TAG of the MONG since August 2, 2019. He provides command and control of over 12,000 MONG Soldiers, Airmen, and Federal and State employees. He ensures the MONG is staffed, trained, equipped, and resourced for its dual state and federal missions.

During his tenure, he led MONG in support of civil authorities during the COVID-19 pandemic and numerous relief efforts during floods, winter storms, and other natural disasters. He modernized facilities and the organization of the Joint Force Headquarters and Army and Air units within the state to best meet the interagency needs of the state and federal governments. The MONG deployed units around the globe, in defense of the U.S. homeland, on the U.S. southern border, and throughout the State of Missouri, ensuring the National Guard was always ready, always there.

General Cumpton will continue to serve as TAG until he takes on his new assignment in February 2025. The next Governor of the State of Missouri will appoint General Cumpton’s replacement as TAG of the MONG.

MIL OSI USA News –

January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI: TAB Bank Powers Major Metal Manufacturer’s Expansion with $4 Million Infusion

Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

OGDEN, Utah, Oct. 24, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — TAB Bank closed a $4 million working capital facility with a rapidly growing, full-service metal manufacturer serving the aerospace, defense, medical, marine and renewable energy industries. The partnership will help the manufacturer consolidate two newly acquired machine shops and expand its operations to meet increased demand.

The manufacturer has built a reputation for exceeding customer expectations with high-precision CNC milling and contract manufacturing services. The company serves major aerospace clients, such as Boeing, Blue Origin, the Department of Defense, SpaceX suppliers and other leading contractors. Its recent acquisition of two additional machine shops has positioned the business to scale further.

“The machine shop consolidation starts a critical growth phase for the company, and we’re excited to be a part of it,” said Ryan Gabriel, TAB’s Business Development Officer covering the Pacific Northwest. “We customized this $4 million working capital facility deal specifically to the manufacturer’s needs so it can continue to streamline operations and optimize performance while delivering innovative solutions to its clients.”

With $18 million in sales in 2023 and projections of $24 million for 2024, the business is well-positioned for sustained growth.

TAB Bank provides tailored financial solutions, including working capital facilities, term loans and equipment financing, to help companies like this manufacturer grow and thrive in competitive industries.

About TAB Bank
At TAB Bank, our mission is to unlock dreams with bold financial solutions that empower individuals and businesses nationwide. We are committed to making financial success accessible to everyone through our innovative banking products. Our dedication drives us to continuously improve, ensuring that we meet the evolving needs of our clients with excellence and agility. For over 25 years, we have remained steadfast in offering tailored, technology-enabled solutions designed to simplify and enhance the banking experience.

Ryan Gabriel is TAB Bank’s Vice President and Business Development Officer based in Seattle. He has over 20 years of experience in structuring asset-based facilities to meet client needs. He can be reached at 206.391.9886 or at ryan.gabriel@tabbank.com.

Contact Information:
Trevor Morris
Director of Marketing
801-624-5172
trevor.morris@tabbank.com

The MIL Network –

January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: Congressman Kim Highlights Youth Mental Health and Bullying Awareness Month at 80th Town Hall

Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Andy Kim (NJ-03)

WILLINGBORO, N.J. – Yesterday, Congressman Andy Kim (NJ-03) hosted a telephone town hall to hear directly from neighbors and share updates from his recent work in Congress, including raising awareness during National Bully Awareness Month and addressing the nationwide mental health crisis.

To begin his 80th town hall, Congressman Kim highlighted his continued efforts to address youth mental health needs and close gaps to accessing care and resources. In recognition of National Bullying Awareness Month, he was joined by Jessica Smedley, LPC and Director of Counseling for West Windsor/Plainsboro Regional School District, who spoke about the role of school counselors to provide proactive mental health and academic support, collective efforts to prevent violence and bullying in schools, and resources available to students and families.

Congressman Kim spoke about his continued work in Congress to address the shortage of mental healthcare resources and workers, including voting to pass the largest gun violence prevention legislative package in 30 years that secured investment in programs to expand mental health and support services in schools as well as securing $1,000,000 to construct a new behavioral health clinic to serve children in Burlington County. He also addressed his “kids agenda” in Congress to combat child poverty with the Child Tax Credit, expand students’ access to nutritious meals, and deliver support to vulnerable communities, including direct support for LGBTQ+ youth.

He also provided updates from his tour yesterday along the Northeast Corridor with NJ Transit and Amtrak leadership where he saw the successful progress of the Gateway Tunnel Project and urged the importance of continued upgrades and investigations to deliver the safe and reliable public transit New Jersey deserves.

The Congressman answered questions from neighbors about issues on their mind, including his efforts to combat corruption, including through legislation to end the dominance of big money in politics, deliver mental health support to children with minority identities, and incentivize building to expand access to affordable housingoptions in New Jersey as well as provide emergency housing resources, like a new homeless shelter in Burlington County that he was able to secure funding for in 2022.

To sign up for more updates from Congressman Kim, including the location and time of his next town hall, click here.

Congressman Kim is the Ranking Member on the Military Personnel Subcommittee, and a member of the House Armed Services Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee, and the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. More information about Congressman Kim’s accessibility, his work serving New Jersey’s 3rd Congressional District, and information on newsletters and his monthly town halls can be found on his website by clicking here.

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MIL OSI USA News –

January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI: Rudy R. Miller Instrument Safety Currency Program (ISCP) Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, College of Aviation, Prescott Campus

Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Oct. 24, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Rudy R. Miller Instrument Safety Currency Program (ISCP) at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, College of Aviation, Prescott Campus, was created and funded by Mr. Miller in 2023, with students receiving simulator time starting in Spring 2024. The ISCP was created to build a curriculum that was compliant with federal regulations for instrument currency. Embry-Riddle’s training experts completed that curriculum which was then reviewed and validated by Embry-Riddle’s Chief Instructor, Ryan Albrecht. Once the process was completed and approved, the curriculum was uploaded into the flight systems for logging and tracking of activity.

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, in coordination with the Prescott’s College of Aviation’s Flight Department and Flight Director, Parker Northrup, oversees the administration of the ISCP fund. This program supports flight students in their junior year flight course to maintain the skills they learned in their instrument rating course where focus is spent on learning commercial performance maneuvers and often allows instrument skills to degrade. The ISCP provides simulator time to update the instrument currency as required by Federal Aviation Regulations.

ISCP RECIPIENTS SPRING 2024

Christopher Gurule, Aeronautical Science Degree
Kaleo Mendoza, Aeronautical Science Degree
Joseph Molitor, Aeronautical Science Degree
Reza Parva, Aeronautical Science Degree

Parker Northrup, Chair, Flight Department, College of Aviation, Prescott Campus, said “Mr. Rudy Miller’s engagement and generosity are such a valuable addition to what we strive to do with our students. ISCP allows us to selectively reinforce the safety culture that depends on maintaining those skills critical to safe instrument flying

Rudy R. Miller commented, “I would like to thank Parker Northrup and Steve Bobinsky, executive director of philanthropy, for their time plus all their remarkable team members’ assistance in supporting this outstanding program for qualified students. I have really enjoyed working on this project over the past year and plan to stay involved.

“The future is bright regarding all the numerous new projects, expansions, and improvements that Embry-Riddle, Prescott Campus, is executing, from my perspective. I am currently involved in a total of five Embry-Riddle projects with respect to my personal time involvement and various funding capabilities.”

About Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Prescott Campus

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Prescott Campus, is organized into four colleges: College of Arts and Sciences, College of Aviation, College of Engineering, and College of Business, Security and Intelligence (the nation’s first), and offers bachelor of science degrees in applied science, aviation, business, computers & technology, engineering, security, intelligence & safety, and space. The Prescott campus also offers master’s degrees in Safety Science, Security & Intelligence, and Cyber Intelligence & Security. The programs in aeronautics, air traffic management, applied meteorology, and aerospace studies are certified by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and is the nation’s first FAA-approved training provider for student airline certification.

About Rudy R. Miller

Mr. Rudy R. Miller, a former member of the U.S. Armed Forces, is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and investor in numerous industries. Mr. Miller is Chairman, President, and CEO of Miller Capital Corporation, an affiliate of The Miller Group of entities; for more information, including Mr. Miller’s biography, visit www.themillergroup.net.

In 2023, Mr. Miller was selected by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to join two influential advisory boards for both the College of Aviation and the College of Business, Security and Intelligence. In addition to joining the advisory boards at Embry-Riddle, he established scholarships for students at both colleges and set up a fund to support simulator training to improve commercial pilot safety, the Rudy R. Miller Instrument Safety Currency Program (ISCP). Mr. Miller instituted the annual Rudy R. Miller Business – Finance Scholarship Program in 2008 to support Arizona State University, W. P. Carey School of Business. Since inception, Mr. Miller has issued three additional ASU scholarships, not included in the annual award process, totaling 23 ASU scholarships to date. Mr. Miller had the honor to serve as a member of ASU’s Dean’s Council of 100, a national group of prominent business executives invited by the Dean to play a leadership role in shaping the future of the W. P. Carey School of Business.

His philanthropic endeavors include support for the non-profit arts community, selective universities, athletic foundations, and veterans’ projects. He is a member-sponsor of the Army Historical Foundation and the National Museum of the U.S. Army located at Fort Belvoir, VA. He served as Chairman of the Advisory Board of Thunderbird Field II Veterans Memorial, Inc. (Tbird2), an organization that honors veterans, from 2018 until March 2024. Mr. Miller developed its aviation scholarship program and process in 2018 and served as the first Chairman of the Scholarship Committee until June 2023. Tbird2 offers scholarships at six colleges, for both veteran and non-veteran students, including two 4-year universities, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and Arizona State University, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering.

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University photographer, Connor McShane,
Director of Enrollment Multimedia, 928 777-6912

Miller Capital Corporation
Kristina Caylor
Vice President Admin & Corporate Controller
kcaylor@themillergroup.net
602.225.0505

Keaton S. Ziem
Senior Communications Officer
ziemk@erau.edu
386.226.4838

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/c327597f-75c9-4779-8d41-a0198005c64e

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/2c4c3dcc-9f44-4f68-9963-bda216c15103

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/40f71685-00ef-42f4-adbd-d5cefe243886

The MIL Network –

January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: ‘Our nuclear childhood’: the sisters who witnessed H-bomb tests over their Pacific island, and are still coming to terms with the fallout
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Christopher Hill, Associate Professor (Research and Development), Faculty of Business and Creative Industries, University of South Wales

Nuclear detonations were the backdrop to Teeua and Teraabo’s childhood. By the time the sisters were eight and four, the Pacific island on which they grew up, Kiritimati, had hosted 30 atomic and thermonuclear explosions – six during Operation Grapple, a British series between 1957 and 1958, and 24 during Operation Dominic, led by the US in 1962.

The UK’s secretary of state for the colonies, Alan Lennox-Boyd, had claimed the Grapple series would put Britain “far ahead of the Americans, and probably the Russians too, in super-bomb development”. Grapple, the country’s largest tri-service operation since D-Day, also involved troops from Fiji and New Zealand. It sought to secure the awesome power of the hydrogen bomb: a thermonuclear device far more destructive than the atomic bomb.

Britain’s seat at the top table of “super-bomb development” was emphatically announced in April 1958 with Grapple Y: an “H-bomb” 200 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. This remains Britain’s largest nuclear detonation – one of more than 100 conducted by the UK, US and Soviet Union in 1958 alone.

More than six decades later, the health effects on former servicemen based on Kiritimati, as well as at test locations in South and Western Australia, remain unresolved. Greater Manchester’s mayor, Andy Burnham, has called the treatment of UK nuclear test veterans “the longest-standing and, arguably, the worst” of all the British public scandals in recent history.

Read more:
Nobel peace prize awarded to Japanese atomic bomb survivors’ group for its efforts to free the world of nuclear weapons

Unlike the Post Office, infected blood and Grenfell Tower inquiries in 2024, there has been no UK inquiry into British nuclear weapon tests in Australia and the Pacific. Yet veterans and their descendants maintain these tests caused hereditary ill-health effects and premature deaths among participants. The British government has been accused of hiding records of these health impacts for decades behind claims of national security.

Over the past year, the life stories of British nuclear test veterans have been collected by researchers, including myself, for an oral history project in partnership with the British Library. Whether from a vantage point of air, land or sea, the veterans all recall witnessing nuclear explosions with startling clarity, as if the moment was seared on to their memories. According to Doug Herne, a ship’s cook with the Royal Navy:

When the flash hit you, you could see the X-rays of your hands through your closed eyes. Then the heat hit you, and it was as if someone my size had caught fire and walked through me. To say it was frightening is an understatement. I think it shocked us into silence.

British servicemen describe their nuclear test experiences. Video: Wester van Gaal/Motherboard.

But what of the experiences of local people on Kiritimati? I have recently interviewed two sisters who are among the few surviving islanders who witnessed the nuclear tests. This is their story.

‘A mushroom cloud igniting the sky’

At the start of Operation Grapple in May 1957, around 250 islanders lived on Kiritimati – the world’s largest coral reef atoll, slap bang in the centre of the Pacific Ocean, around 1,250 miles (2,000km) due south of Hawaii. The island’s name is derived from the English word “Christmas”, the atoll having been “discovered” by the British explorer James Cook on Christmas Eve 1777.

In May 2023, I visited Kiritimati for a research project on “British nuclear imperialism”, which investigated how post-war Britain used its dwindling imperial assets and resources as a springboard for nuclear development. I sought to interview islanders who had remained on the atoll since the tests, including Teeua Tekonau, then aged 68. In 2024, I visited her younger sister, Teraabo Pollard, who lives more than 8,000 miles away in the contrasting surroundings of Burnley, north-west England.

Far from descriptions of fear and terror, both Teeua and Teraabo looked back on the tests with striking enthusiasm. Teraabo recalled witnessing them from the local maneaba (open-air meeting place) or tennis court as a “pleasurable” experience full of “excitement”.

She described having her ears plugged with cotton wool before being covered with a blanket. As if by magic, the blanket was then lifted to reveal a mushroom cloud igniting the night sky – a sight accompanied by sweetened bread handed out by American soldiers. So vivid was the light that Teraabo, then aged four, described “being excited about it being daytime again”.

An Operation Grapple thermonuclear test near Kiritimati, 1957-58. Video: Imperial War Museums.

In view of the violence of the tests, I was struck that Teeua and Teraabo volunteered these positive memories. Their enthusiasm seemed in marked contrast to growing concerns about the radioactive fallout – including those voiced by surviving test veterans and their descendants. As children, the tests seem to have offered the sisters a spectacle of fantasy and escapism – glazed with the saccharine of American treats and Disney films on British evacuation ships.

Yet they have also lived through the premature deaths of family members and, in Teraabo’s case, a malignant tumour dating from the time of the tests. And there have been similar stories from other families who lived in the shadow of these very risky, loosely controlled experiments. Teraabo told me about a friend who had peeked out from her blanket as a young girl – and who suffered from eye and health problems ever since.

‘Only a very slight health hazard’

Kiritimati forms part of the impossibly large Republic of Kiribati – a nation of 33 islands spread over 3.5 million square kilometres; the only one to have territory in all four hemispheres and, until 1995, on either side of the international date line. Before independence from Britain in 1979, Kiribati belonged to the Gilbert and Ellice Island Colony, which in effect made Kiritimati a “nuclear colony” for the purpose of British and American testing.

In 1955, Teeua and Teraabo’s parents, Taraem and Tekonau Tetoa, left their home island of Tabiteuea, a small atoll belonging to the Gilbert group of islands in the western Pacific. They boarded a British merchant vessel bound for Christmas Island nearly 2,000 miles away. Setting sail with new-born Teeua in their arms, the family looked forward to a future cutting copra on Kiritimati’s British coconut plantation.

The scale of this journey, with four young children, was immense. Just how the hundred or so Gilbertese passengers “managed to live [during the voyage] was better not asked”, according to one royal engineer who described a similar voyage a few years later. “There were piles of coconuts everywhere – perhaps they were for both food and drink.”

The Insights section is committed to high-quality longform journalism. Our editors work with academics from many different backgrounds who are tackling a wide range of societal and scientific challenges.

Within two years of their arrival, the family faced more upheaval as mother Taraem and her children were packed aboard another ship ahead of the first three sets of British nuclear tests in the Pacific. Known as Grapple 1, 2 and 3, they were to be detonated over Malden Island, an atoll some 240 miles to the south of Kiritimati – but still too close for the comfort of local residents.

According to Teeua, the evacuation was prompted by disillusioned labourers brought to Kiritimati without their families, who went on strike after learning how much the British troops were being paid. But the islanders’ perspectives do not feature much in the colonial records, which give precedence to British disputes about logistical costs and safety calculations.

The Grapple task force resolved that the safe limit set by the International Commission on Radiological Protection should be reduced, to limit the cost of evacuations. A meeting in November 1956 noted that “only a very slight health hazard to people would arise from this reduction – and that only to primitive peoples”.

Shocking as this remark sounds, it is typical of the disregard that nuclear planners appear to have had, both for Indigenous communities and the mostly working-class soldiers. These lives did not seem to matter much in the context of Britain’s quest for nuclear supremacy. William Penney, Britain’s chief nuclear scientist, had bemoaned how critics during tests in Australia were “intent on thwarting the whole future of the British Empire for the sake of a few Aboriginals”.

Tekonau, Teeua’s father, was one of the 30 or so I-Kiribati people to stay behind on Kiritimati during the Malden tests in May and June 1957. As one of the only labourers to speak English, he had gained the trust of the district commissioner, Percy Roberts, who invited Tekonau to accompany him during inspections of villagers’ houses in Port London, then the island’s only village. On one occasion, Teeua said, the islanders did not recognise her father as he had been given a “flat top” haircut like the Fijian soldiers. “This means he had a nice relationship with the soldiers,” she told me. “Thank God for giving me such a good and clever dad.”

Since the initial tests did not produce a thermonuclear explosion, the task force embarked on further trials between November 1957 and September 1958, known as Grapple X, Y and Z. In view of expense and time, these were conducted on Kiritimati rather than Malden Island – and this time, the residents were not evacuated to other islands. Rather, families were brought aboard ships in the island’s harbour and shown films below deck.

After these tests, the islanders returned to find the large X and Y detonations had cracked the walls of their homes and smashed their doors and furniture. One islander found their pet frigate bird, like so many of the wild birds on Kiritimati, had been blinded by the flash of Grapple Y. No compensation was ever paid to the islanders, although the Ministry of Supply did reimburse the colony for deterioration of “plantation assets”, including £4 for every damaged coconut tree (equivalent to £120 today).

A month before Grapple Y, Teraabo was born. Her earliest and most vivid childhood memories are of the US-led Operation Dominic four years later, by which time evacuation procedures had been abandoned altogether.

This series of tests was sanctioned by Britain in exchange for a nuclear-powered submarine and access to the Nevada Proving Grounds in the US – regarded as pivotal to the future of British weapons technology ahead of the signing of the Test Ban Treaty in October 1963, which would prohibit atmospheric testing.

Dominic’s 24 detonations on Kiritimati – which usually took place after sunset around 6pm, between April and November 1962 – were “awesome”, according to Teraabo. Recalling the suspense as the “tannoy announced the countdown”, she described “coming out of cover [and] witnessing the bomb [as] an amazing experience … When the bomb set off, the brilliance of the light was tremendous.”

Each explosion’s slow expiration would re-illuminate the Pacific sky. One, Starfish Prime, became known as a “rainbow bomb” because of the multi-coloured aurora it produced over the Pacific, having been launched into space where it exploded.

So spectacular were these descriptions that I almost felt I had to suspend disbelief as I listened. At one point in my interview with Teraabo, she leaned in to reassure me that she had no interest in exaggerating these events: “I’m a very proud person,” she whispered, “I would never lie.”

‘In our blood’

More than six decades on from the Grapple tests, I was sitting in Teeua’s kitchen in the village of Tabwakea (meaning “turtle”), near the northern tip of Kiritimati. I had driven here in a Subaru Forester, clapped-out from the many potholes on the island’s main road, itself built by royal engineers over 60 years ago.

Teeua Tekonau in her kitchen during the author’s visit to Kiritimati in 2023.
Christopher R. Hill., CC BY

Teeua’s home, nestled down a sand track, had a wooden veranda at the front where she would teach children to read and write under shelter from the hot equatorial sun. Handcrafted mats lined the sand and coral floor, fanning out from the veranda to the kitchen at the back.

The house felt full of the sounds of the local community, from the chatter of neighbours to the laughter of children outdoors. No one could feel lonely here, despite the vastness of the ocean that surrounds Kiritimati.

As Teeua cooked rice and prepared coffee, we discussed the main reason for my visit: to understand the impacts of the nuclear tests on the islanders, their descendents, and the sensitive ecosystem in which they live. Teeua is chair of Kiritimati’s Association of Atomic Cancer Patients, and one of only three survivors of the tests still living on Kiritimati. She pulled up a seat and looked at me:

Many, many died of cancer … And many women had babies that died within three months … I remember the coconut trees … when you drank [from the coconuts], you [were] poisoned.

Both Teeua’s parents and four of her eight siblings had died of cancer or unexplained conditions, she said. Her younger brother, Takieta, died of leukaemia at the age of two in November 1963 – less than a year after Operation Dominic ended. Her sister Teraabo, who discovered a tumour in her stomach shortly after the trials, was only able to have her stomach treated once she moved to the UK in 1981, by which time the tumour had turned malignant.

Teeua’s testimony pointed to the gendered impacts of the nuclear tests. She referred to the prevalence of menstrual problems and stillbirths, evidence of which can be inferred from the testimony of another nuclear survivor, Sui Kiritome, a fellow I-Kiribati who had arrived on Kiritimati in 1957 with her teacher husband. Sui has described how their second child, Rakieti, had “blood coming out of all the cavities of her body” at birth.

A rare military hospital record from 1958 – stored in the UK’s National Archives at Kew in London – also refers to the treatment of a civilian woman for ante-partum haemorrhage and stillbirth, though it is unclear whether this was a local woman or one of the soldier’s wives on the passenger ship HMT Dunera, which visited briefly to “boost morale” after Grapple X.

Members of the Kiritimati Association of Atomic Cancer Patients.
Courtesy: Teeua Taukaro., CC BY-ND

Having re-established the Association of Atomic Cancer Patients in 2009, Teeua has continued much of the work that Ken McGinley, first chair of the British Nuclear Tests Veterans Association, did after its establishment in 1983. She has documented the names of all I-Kiribati people present during the tests, along with their spouses, children and other relatives. And she has listed the cancers and illnesses from which they have suffered.

In the absence of medical records at the island hospital, these handwritten notes are the closest thing on the atoll to epidemiological data about the tests. But according to Teeua, concerns about the health effects of the tests date back much longer, to 1965 when a labourer named Bwebwe spoke out about poisonous clouds. “Everyone thought he was crazy,” Teeua recalled.

But Bwebwe’s speculations were lent credibility by Sui Kiritome’s testimony, and by the facial scars she bore that were visible for all to see. In an interview with her daughter, Sui explained how she was only 24 when she started to lose her hair, and “burns developed on my face, scalp and parts of my shoulder”.

In a similar manner to claims made by British nuclear test veterans, Sui attributed her health problems to being rained on during Grapple Y – which may have been detonated closer to the atoll’s surface than the task force was prepared to admit.

When I asked Teeua why her campaigning association was only reformed in 2009, she explained it had been prompted by a visit from British nuclear test veterans who “told us that everyone [involved in the tests] has cancer – blood cancer”. They had been told this in the past but, she said, “we did not believe it. But after years … after our children [also] died of cancer, then we remembered what they told us.”

After some visiting researchers explained to Teeua and the community that the effects of the tests were “not good”, she concluded that “our kids died of cancer because of the tests … That’s why we start to combine together … the nuclear survivors, to talk about what they did to our kids”.

I found Teeua’s testimony deeply troubling: not only because of the suffering she and other families have been through, but in the way that veterans had returned to Kiritimati as civilians, raising concerns among locals that may have lain dormant or been forgotten. The suggestion that radiation was “in her blood” must have been deeply disturbing for Teeua and her community.

But I reminded myself that the veterans who came looking for answers in 2009 were also victims. They made the long journey seeking clues about their health problems, or a silver bullet to prove their government’s deception over the nuclear fallout.

As young men, they were unwittingly burdened with a lifetime of uncertainty – compounded by endless legal disputes with the Ministry of Defence or inconclusive health studies that jarred with their personal medical histories. And, like the islanders, some of these servicemen died young after experiencing agonising illnesses.

The scramble for the Pacific

My research on British nuclear imperialism also sheds light on how imperial and settler colonial perceptions of “nature” shaped how these nuclear tests were planned and operationalised.

British sites were selected on the basis of in-depth environmental research. When searching the site for Britain’s first atomic bomb (the Montebello Islands off the west coast of Australia), surveyors discovered 20 new species of insect, six new plants, and a species of legless lizard.

Monitoring of radioactive fallout from nuclear tests fed into the rise of ecosystem ecologies as an academic discipline. In the words of one environmental specialist on the US tests, it seemed that “destruction was the enabling condition for understanding life as interconnected”.

Since H-bombs would exceed the explosive yield deemed acceptable by Australia, Winston Churchill’s government in the mid-1950s had been forced to look for a new test site beyond Western and South Australia. British planners drew on a wealth of imperial knowledge and networks – but their proposal to use the Kermadec Islands, an archipelago 600 miles north-east of Auckland, was rejected by New Zealand on environmental grounds.

So, when Teeua and her family landed on Kiritimati in 1955, their journey was part of “the scramble for the Pacific”: a race between Britain and the US to lay claim to the sovereignty of Pacific atolls in light of their strategic significance for air and naval power.

The British government archives include some notable environmental “what ifs?” Had the US refused the UK’s selection of Kiritimati because of its own sovereignty claim, then it would have been probable, as Lennox-Boyd, Britain’s colonial secretary, admitted, that “the Antarctic region south of Australia might have to be used” for its rapidly expanding nuclear programme.

Instead, this extraordinary period in global history recently took me to a Victorian mansion in the Lancashire town of Burnley, where I interviewed Teeua’s younger sister, Teraabo, about her memories of the Kiritimati tests.

‘No longer angry’

Teraabo’s home felt like the antithesis of Teeua’s island abode 8,300 miles away: ordered instead of haphazard, private instead of communal, spacious instead of crowded. And our interview had a more detached, philosophical tone.

Teraabo Pollard with her father’s nuclear test veteran medal.
Christopher R. Hill., CC BY-ND

Like her sister, Teraabo has worked to raise awareness about the legacy of the nuclear tests, including with the Christmas Island Appeal, an offshoot of the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association that sought to publicise the extent of the waste left on Kiritimati from the nuclear test period.

The appeal succeeded in persuading Tony Blair’s UK government to tackle the remaining waste in Kiritimati – most of which was non-radiological, according to a 1998 environmental assessment. The island was “cleaned up” and remediated between 2004 and 2008, at a cost of around £5 million to the Ministry of Defence. Much of the waste was flown or shipped back to the UK, where 388 tonnes of low-grade radioactive material were deposited in a former salt mine at Port Clarence, near Middlesbrough.

Yet Teraabo’s views have evolved. She told me she is “no longer angry” about the tests, a stark contrast to her position 20 years ago, when she told British journalist Alan Rimmer how islanders had “led a simple life with disease virtually unknown. But after the tests, everything changed. I now realise the whole island was poisoned.”

Whereas the Teraabo of 2003 blamed “the British government for all this misery”, she has since become more reflective. In the context of the cold war and the nuclear arms race, she even told me she could understand the British rationale for selecting Kiritimati as a test site. This seemed a remarkable statement from a survivor who had lost so much.

Over the course of the interview, it became clear Teraabo had grown tired of being angry – and that she had felt “trapped” by the tragic figure she was meant to represent in the campaigns of veterans and disarmers. Each time Teraabo rehearsed the doom-laden script of radiation exposure, she admitted she was also suppressing the joy of her childhood memories.

A turning point for Teraabo seems to have come in 2007, when she last visited Kiritimati and met her sister Teeua. By this time, the atoll’s population was 4,000 – quite a leap from the 300 residents she grew up with. “It is no longer the island I remember,” she said.

The Kiritimati of Teraabo’s memory was neat and well-structured. The one she described encountering in 2007 was chaotic and unkempt. She had come to the realisation that the Kiritimati she had been campaigning for – the pristine, untouched atoll of her parents – had long since moved on, so she should move on with it. The sorrow caused by the test operations would not define her.

Radioactive colonialism

Not long after I left Kiritimati in June 2023, the global nuclear disarmament organisation Ican began researching the atoll ahead of a major global summit to discuss the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Descendants of Kiritimati’s nuclear test survivors were asked a series of questions, with those who provided the “right” answers being selected for a sponsored trip to UN headquarters in New York.

The chosen representatives included Teeua’s daughter, Taraem. I wondered if the survivors of Kiritimati are doomed to forever rehearse the stories of their nuclear past – a burden that Teeua and Teraabo have had to carry ever since they stood in awe of atomic and thermonuclear detonations more than 60 years ago.

They have had to deal with “radioactive colonialism” all their adult lives – the outside world demanding to see the imprint of radioactivity on their health and memories. But the sisters’ fondness for British order, despite all they have been through, prevails.

Their positive memories of Britain may in part reflect the elevated role of their father, Tekonau Tetoa – a posthumous recipient of the test veteran medal – within the British colonial system. During my visit, I happened upon an old photo of Tekonau, looking immaculate as he hangs off the side of a plantation truck in a crisp white shirt. Knowing Teeua did not possess a photo of her parents, I took a scan and raced to her house down the road.

“Do you recognise this man?” I asked, holding up my phone.

She flickered with recognition. “Is that my father?”

I nodded, and she shed a tear of joy.

Tekonau Tetoa, father of Teeua and Teraabo, hangs off the door of a coconut plantation truck in Kiritimati.
Courtesy: John Bryden., CC BY-ND

Memories of Teeua and Teraabo’s father are preserved in the island landscape of their youth: pristine, regimented by the ostensible tidiness of colonial and military order.

But such order masked contamination: an unknown quantity that would only become evident years later in ill-health and environmental damage. It was not only the nuclear tests: from 1957 to 1964, the atoll was sprayed four times a week with DDT, a carcinogenic insecticide, as part of attempts to reduce insect-borne disease. In the words of one of the pilots: “I had many a wave from the rather fat Gilbo ladies sitting on their loos as I passed overhead, and gave them some spray for good measure!” British tidiness concealed a special brand of poison.

Today, the prospect of a meaningful response from the UK to the concerns raised by the islanders and servicemen alike seems slim. In October 2023, the UK and France followed North Korea and Russia in vetoing a Kiribati and Kazakhstan-proposed UN resolution on victim assistance and environmental remediation for people and places harmed by nuclear weapons use and testing.

Over in Kiritimati, meanwhile, Teeua still tends to a small plot where Prince Philip planted a commemorative tree in April 1959, shortly after the British-led nuclear tests had ended. It is rumoured he did not drink from the atoll’s water while he was there.

For you: more from our Insights series:
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Christopher Hill receives funding from the Office for Veterans’ Affairs, UK Cabinet Office. The research for this article was also supported by funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), UKRI. The author wishes to thank the following for their support with this article: Fiona Bowler, Ian Brailsford, Joshua Bushen, John Bryden, Jon Hogg, Brian Jones, Rens van Munster, Wesley Perriman, Maere Tekanene, Michael Walsh, Rotee Walsh and Derek Woolf. Sincere thanks to Teeua Tekonau and Teraabo Pollard for sharing their family stories.

– ref. ‘Our nuclear childhood’: the sisters who witnessed H-bomb tests over their Pacific island, and are still coming to terms with the fallout – https://theconversation.com/our-nuclear-childhood-the-sisters-who-witnessed-h-bomb-tests-over-their-pacific-island-and-are-still-coming-to-terms-with-the-fallout-239780
MIL OSI – Global Reports –
January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI Europe: Address by President Viola Amherd at the open debate of the UN Security Council on women in peace processes

Source: Switzerland – Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport

Address by President Viola Amherd, head of the Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport (DDPS), at the open debate of the UN Security Council on women in peace processes (Women, Peace, Security), New York, Thursday, 24 October 2024.

MIL OSI Europe News –

January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI Video: Phone -in- Programme with the South African Military Ombud General(Ret) Vusumuzi Masondo

Source: Republic of South Africa (video statements-2)

Phone -in- Programme with the South African Military Ombud General(Ret) Vusumuzi Masondo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH851dC8oWY

MIL OSI Video –

January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: Ciscomani, Chairman Bost Attend Veteran-Focused Events in AZ06
Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Juan Ciscomani (Arizona)

ARIZONA 6th – U.S. Congressman Juan Ciscomani (AZ-06) and House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Mike Bost (IL-12) attended several veterans-focused events in Arizona’s 6th Congressional district, which is home to over 70,000 veterans. 

The events included hosting a quarterly meeting with Ciscomani’s Veterans Advisory Council, touring Northstar Neurology’s facilities, attending the Cochise County Veteran StandDown Resource Fair, discussing Cochise College’s Military and Veteran Serving Program, and attending the Fort Huachuca Quarterly Installation Retirement Ceremony.

“As the Representative to over 70,000 veterans that call Arizona’s 6th district home, it is my duty and honor to advocate on their behalf and ensure their needs are prioritized by the federal government,” said Ciscomani. “I am grateful to Chairman Bost for his leadership and taking the time to talk directly with veterans in my district. I will continue to push for legislation, funding, and other efforts that provide comprehensive healthcare, mental health support, educational opportunities, and employment resources to our veterans to empower them to transition successfully into civilian life.”

“As Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, I was honored to visit with my friend and colleague Rep. Juan Ciscomani in Arizona’s sixth congressional district last week to meet with his veteran community,” said Chairman Bost. “We visited with veterans from all walks of life, including veterans from the Cochise community, and veterans’ survivors to see firsthand how Arizona is leading the way to get veterans and their family’s access to the economic opportunities, education, and outside-the-box mental health support and resources they have earned. House Republicans will continue pushing to cut through the red tape and open more doors for veterans and transitioning active-duty servicemembers across the country. It goes without saying that veterans in southeastern Arizona have no better advocate than my friend, Rep. Ciscomani, fighting for them every day in DC on the issues that matter most to them.”

Veterans Advisory Council

Ciscomani, Bost hosted a quarterly meeting with Ciscomani’s Veteran Advisory Council, which is chaired by Maj. Gen. Don Shepperd (Ret.) and is comprised of veterans from the U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, and U.S. Navy. The council has identified specific areas of focus, which include which include veterans’ transition into civilian life, access to housing, mental health and suicide prevention, and workforce and education opportunities.

Tour of Northstar Neurology

Ciscomani and Bost toured Northstar Neurology, a treatment facility in Tucson founded in 2017 that provides critical help to veterans suffering with a traumatic brain injury or PTSD.

Cochise County Veteran StandDown Resource Fair 

Ciscomani, Bost, and Congressman Tony Gonzales (TX-23) attended the Cochise County Veteran StandDown Resource Fair to speak directly with veterans about the most pressing issues they face and share resources Ciscomani’s office can offer to veterans. 

Cochise College Military & Veteran Serving Program

Ciscomani, Bost visited Cochise College to discuss their Military and Veteran Serving Program and strong partnership with Fort Huachuca to assist active-duty members and veterans and the two new Baccalaureate programs.

Fort Huachuca Quarterly Installation Retirement Ceremony

Ciscomani, Bost attended Fort Huachuca Quarterly Installation Retirement Ceremony to celebrate military retirees. 

Background:

In his freshman term in office, Congressman Ciscomani, who is a member of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, has introduced ten pieces of veterans-focused legislation. These include: 
- The VET-TEC Authorization Act of 2023 (H.R. 1669) which extends a popular program that covers costs for veterans seeking job training in high-tech industries. 
- The VETS Opportunity Act (H.R. 7896), to expand veterans’ access to educational opportunities for in-demand skilled trade and vocational programs.  
- The VET MEDS Act (H.R. 5470) to extend the VA’s authority to allow certain healthcare providers to conduct exams across state lines.   
- The Veterans’ Appeals Backlog Improvement Act (H.R. 1378) to reduce wait times for veterans seeking disability claims and ensure they are processed faster.  
- The Prioritizing Veterans’ Survivors Act (H.R. 7100) to move the Office of Survivors Assistance (OSA) back within the Office of the VA Secretary. This move ensures that OSA has direct access to the Secretary to fix policy and program-wide problems.
- The Rural Veterans’ Benefit Improvement Act (H.R. 8881) to ensure veterans have permanent, cross-state access to certified healthcare providers for disability claim exams.  
- The Senator Elizabeth Dole 21st Century Veterans Healthcare and Benefits Improvement Act (H.R. 8371), which will be the flagship veterans’ package for the 118th Congress. It includes a number of bipartisan and bicameral proposals to reform and improve the delivery of healthcare, benefits, and services at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for veterans, their families, and their survivors. This includes your effort to reauthorize the VET-TEC program.   
- The Expanding Access for Online Veterans Student Act (H.R. 5702), which increased housing stipends for student veterans attending classes online.   
- The Veteran Exam Expansion Act (H.R. 5938), which expands the pool of providers eligible to cross state lines when conducting disability exams for veterans.  
- The Coordinating Care for Senior Veterans and Wounded Warriors Act (H.R. 9399) to improve healthcare coordination and management for veterans who receive services through Medicare and the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA).  
Through casework, the Congressman’s team has returned over $5 million to constituents, including $1.9 million to the veterans of Arizona’s 6th Congressional District. This is money and benefits that were owed to constituents but were stuck in the bureaucracy of a federal agency.

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MIL OSI USA News –
January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: Senator Baldwin Leads Senate Resolution Designating October 23 National Marine Sanctuary Day

US Senate News:

Source: United States Senator for Wisconsin Tammy Baldwin

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) introduced a Senate Resolution designating October 23, 2024 as “National Marine Sanctuary Day.” The resolution highlights the role of national marine sanctuaries in increasing access to nature, protecting biodiversity, and boosting economic activity for coastal communities.

“Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary is an engine for tourism and world-class research along Lake Michigan, stimulating our local economies and pioneering breakthroughs for our Great Lakes,” said Senator Baldwin. “I’m proud to have fought for and delivered a national marine sanctuary for Wisconsin, and will continue to fight to protect our nation’s natural resources and ensure generations to come can enjoy our coastlines.”

Senator Baldwin has fought to support national marine sanctuaries, successfully leading the charge to bring a National Marine Sanctuary to Wisconsin in 2021. In October 2013, Senator Baldwin urged the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to re-open the public nomination process for marine sanctuaries for the first time in 20 years. After the Administration announced in June 2014 that Americans would be given the opportunity to nominate nationally significant marine and Great Lakes areas as national marine sanctuaries, Wisconsin’s Lake Michigan proposal was submitted and Senator Baldwin called on NOAA to support their efforts. The Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary was officially designated in 2021.

As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator Baldwin has continued to advocate for Wisconsin’s Great Lakes by supporting robust funding for the National Marine Sanctuaries Program and by requesting federal funding for the Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary Foundation.

The resolution is co-sponsored by Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Patty Murray (D-WA), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Peter Welch (D-VT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Gary Peters (D-MI).

The resolution is supported by Alabama Coastal Foundation, Azul, California Academy of Sciences, Carolina Ocean Alliance, Creation Justice Ministries, EarthEcho International, The Florida Aquarium, Friends of the Mariana Trench, Global Rewilding Alliance, Greater Farallones Association, GreenLatinos, Guy Harvey Foundation, Healthy Ocean Coalition, Inland Ocean Coalition, Minorities in Shark Sciences, Monterey Bay Aquarium, National Aquarium, National Ocean Protection Coalition, National Wildlife Federation, Next 100 Coalition, Ocean Defense Initiative, Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium + Northwest Trek Wildlife Park, Shark Stewards, Shedd Aquarium, South Carolina Aquarium, Surfrider Foundation, Sustainable Ocean Alliance, The Ocean Project, WILDCOAST, Wildlife Conservation Society, and World Ocean Day.

“National marine sanctuaries are special places in America’s waters where people show up as part of the solution to steward our blue planet,” said Joel R. Johnson, President and CEO of the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation. “From the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, the Chesapeake Bay to Pacific Islands, national marine sanctuaries connect us with wildlife and our shared history making us feel like we are part of something much greater than ourselves. Our continued support for these treasured waters is more essential than ever and makes a positive impact for present and future generations.”

“The conservation of our special ocean and Great Lakes places is vital for the species that depend on them, the communities that rely on them, and the future generations that dream about them,” said Ayana Melvan, Director of Conservation Action of the Aquarium Conservation Partnership.

“The ACP and its members strive to celebrate the science and stories of our National Marine Sanctuary System at every opportunity. We’re proud to stand behind the Senator’s resolution to recognize the 600,000 sq. miles and growing of marine and Great Lake waters that truly make America beautiful,” said Kim McIntyre, Executive Director of the Aquarium Conservation Partnership.

A full version of this resolution is available here and below.

Designating October 23, 2024, as “National Marine Sanctuary Day”.

Whereas, on October 23, 1972, the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act of 1972 (33 U.S.C. 1401 et seq.) became law and ushered in a new era of ocean conservation;

Whereas the National Marine Sanctuary System is a nationwide network that conserves spectacular oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes;

Whereas communities across the United States can nominate their most treasured marine and Great Lakes waters for consideration as national marine sanctuaries;

Whereas national marine sanctuaries protect biodiversity, safeguard extraordinary seascapes, historic shipwrecks, and sacred cultural places, and provide abundant recreational opportunities;

Whereas national marine sanctuaries seek opportunities to partner with indigenous governments and communities to achieve shared conservation goals and to support the care-taking of ecological resources and cultural sites of indigenous peoples;

Whereas national marine sanctuaries protect vital habitats for countless species of fish and wildlife, including many species that are listed as threatened or endangered;

Whereas the conservation of marine ecosystems is vital for healthy oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes, for addressing climate change, and for sustaining productive coastal economies;

Whereas the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation and its partners work to protect and nurture the growth of the National Marine Sanctuary System;

Whereas national marine sanctuaries increase access to nature for all, support coastal communities, and generate billions of dollars annually in local communities by providing jobs in the United States, supporting commercial, Tribal, and recreational fisheries, bolstering tourism and recreation, engaging businesses in stewardship, and driving the growth of the blue economy;

Whereas national marine sanctuaries connect people and communities through science, education, United States history, recreation, and stewardship and inspire community-based solutions that help individuals understand and protect the spectacular underwater habitats, wildlife, archaeological resources, and cultural seascapes of the United States;

Whereas national marine sanctuaries are living laboratories that enable cooperative science and research that improves resource management and advances innovative public-private partnerships;

Whereas national marine sanctuaries can help make oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes more resilient by protecting ecosystems that sequester carbon, by safeguarding coastal communities from flooding and storms, and by protecting biodiversity;

Whereas the United States is a historic maritime Nation, and oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes are central to the way of life of the people of the United States;

Whereas engaging communities as stewards of these protected waters makes national marine sanctuaries unique and provides a comprehensive, ecosystem-based, highly participatory approach to managing and conserving marine and Great Lakes environments for current and future generations; and

Whereas October 23, 2024, is recognized as “National Marine Sanctuary Day” to increase awareness about the importance of the National Marine Sanctuary System and healthy oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes and to celebrate the many recreational opportunities available for the enjoyment of this network of protected waters: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Senate—

(1) designates October 23, 2024, as “National Marine Sanctuary Day”;

(2) encourages the people of the United States and the world to responsibly visit, experience, recreate in, and support the treasured national marine sanctuaries of the United States;

(3) acknowledges the importance of national marine sanctuaries in supporting community resilience, protecting biodiversity, and increasing access to nature;

(4) recognizes the importance of national marine sanctuaries for their recreational opportunities and contributions to local and national economies across the United States;

(5) celebrates the ability of the National Marine Sanctuary System to protect nationally significant places in oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes;

(6) calls on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to partner with communities and to complete designations of new national marine sanctuaries; and

(7) encourages Federal agencies to balance priorities and work together to support the priorities of the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act of 1972 (33 U.S.C. 1401 et seq.).

MIL OSI USA News –

January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI Security: Former Federal Employee Pleads Guilty to Mishandling Classified Materials

Source: Office of United States Attorneys

Margaret Anne Ashby, 26, of Henderson, Nevada, pleaded guilty today for mishandling sensitive documents as a former employee of a Department of Defense component agency.

As described in the plea agreement, starting in March 2020, Ashby was a civilian employee of a Department of Defense component agency located in the Southern District of Georgia, and during this time held a top secret security clearance as required for her employment.

From February 2022 to May 2022, Ashby, without authority, knowingly removed documents and materials containing classified information “concerning the national defense or foreign relations of the United States . . . with the intent to retain them at unauthorized locations, including her residence in the Southern District of Georgia and in digital files saved via a personal computing device located in the Southern District of Georgia.”

A sentencing date has not yet been set. Ashby faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and three years of supervised release for mishandling sensitive documents, along with substantial financial penalties. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, U.S. Attorney Jill E. Steinberg for the Southern District of Georgia, and Robert Wells of the FBI National Security Branch announced the case.

The FBI investigated the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys L. Alexander Hamner and Darron J. Hubbard for the Southern District of Georgia and Trial Attorney David J. Ryan of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting the case.

MIL Security OSI –

January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI Banking: Charting the course: prudential regulation and supervision for smooth sailing
Source: Bank for International Settlements

Introduction

Good afternoon, and thank you for inviting me to speak at this conference today.

It is a privilege to be speaking today as the Chair of the Basel Committee, following my appointment by the Group of Governors and Heads of Supervision (GHOS) in May of this year.¹ This is a position that has been previously enjoyed by only 11 people during the Committee’s 50 years. As a Reserve Officer in the Royal Swedish Navy, I would liken this honour as akin to taking the helm of a well steered vessel by seasoned captains.

As you know, the work of the Basel Committee since the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) – under the leadership of Nout Wellink, Stefan Ingves and, more recently, Pablo Hernández de Cos – has fundamentally reshaped the regulatory landscape for internationally active banks. The Basel Framework is the cornerstone of the international community’s response to the GFC. Since 2011, banks’ Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) risk-based capital ratio has increased by over 70% and now stands at around 13.8%.² Global banking system leverage has almost halved during this period, with an average Tier 1 leverage ratio of just over 6%.³ And banks’ holdings of high-quality liquid assets have more than doubled to over €12.5 trillion, with a corresponding Liquidity Coverage Ratio of over 135%.⁴

The Basel III reforms have brought tangible benefits. In sailing, no matter how skilled you are, you can’t control the weather. However, you can prepare your boat with safety protocols and solid equipment. The Committee helps ensure that the global banking system is prepared for the unexpected. There is now an extensive empirical literature that suggests that the Basel III reforms have had an unambiguously positive net macroeconomic effect.⁵ The reforms have clearly strengthened bank resilience at both the bank and system-wide level, which in turn will help reduce the likelihood and impact of future banking crises. At the same time, banks, particularly strongly capitalised ones, have continued to meet the demand for lending from households and businesses.⁶

Just as important as the effects of Basel III is the process by which the reforms were finalised. The Committee consulted extensively when developing Basel III – we do not operate in a vacuum or opaquely. It published no fewer than 10 consultation papers, which collectively spanned a consultation period of almost three years. It engaged extensively with a wide range of external stakeholders. Each consultation was accompanied by a rigorous quantitative impact study, which was supplemented by a half-yearly public Basel III monitoring exercise. So it is reassuring and appropriate to find that a recent academic study concluded that the Committee’s consultation approach is “one of the most procedurally sophisticated” processes among policymaking bodies.⁷ Moreover, member jurisdictions have undertaken their own rigorous domestic rule-making processes to transpose these standards.

But the work to fix the banking system fault lines exposed by the GFC is not done. We need to lock in the financial stability benefits of implementing the outstanding Basel III standards in full and consistently, and as soon as possible. I take comfort in the recent unanimous reaffirmation by the GHOS to achieve such an outcome.⁸ The Committee has been actively monitoring and assessing the full and consistent implementation of Basel III and will continue to do so.

As this is my maiden speech as Committee Chair, I will outline some high-level principles that I will be relying upon to help guide how I view the work of the Committee. I will also offer a few personal reflections on some topical issues. As a keen sailor, I should apologise in advance for my continued use of maritime language!

Principle 1: Sail forward but always glance back

My starting point is that we cannot afford to ignore, or forget, the lessons of history. This time is not different. There have been no fewer than 150 systemic banking crises since 1970.⁹ Just last year, we saw the most significant system-wide banking stress since the GFC, including the distress of five banks with total assets exceeding one trillion US dollars. While each banking crisis may have had its unique characteristics, the common thread throughout history is that we simply cannot predict when or from where the next crisis will emerge. We therefore need to ensure robust and durable resilience for the global banking system to withstand a range of potential shocks.

Banking crises have a profound impact on our economies and social welfare. In my home country of Sweden, the 1990s banking crisis and the GFC resulted in output losses of over 30% and 25%, respectively.¹⁰ These are not just numbers, but reflect economic hardships endured by citizens, including job losses and foregone growth potential. We must always remember this stark reality when regulating and supervising banks.

And yet, despite the painful effects of banking crises, history suggests that the lessons from such events are often forgotten as part of a “regulatory cycle”.¹¹ Memories fade over time, and a view takes hold that this time really is different. As the cycle turns, policymakers, supervisors and risk managers at banks sometimes become complacent and give in to pressures to dilute regulatory safeguards. Such a journey never ends well: it is only a matter of time until stormy waters reveal banks’ stress points and fractures.

This is not a course that I intend to chart. The reality is that a banking system built upon leverage and maturity transformation will inevitably face episodes of distress. Misconduct, governance failures and imprudent risk management practices further increase the likelihood and impact of crises.

To be clear, the first and most important source of resilience comes from banks’ own risk management practices and governance arrangements. The boards and management of banks should be the first port of call in managing and overseeing risks; they cannot outsource these functions to supervisors. Yet history suggests that some banks’ boards and senior management occasionally fail in their most elementary responsibilities. So it is critical that bankers, policymakers and supervisors do not forget the lessons from the past and take a medium-term perspective. Consider, for example, the recent growth in the use of so-called synthetic risk transfers (SRTs) by banks across several regions.¹² Such transactions are intended to reduce banks’ capital requirements by “transferring” the risks associated with some exposures to a third party – often a non-bank financial intermediary (NBFI) – which provides credit protection or insurance. The Basel Framework allows for such transactions to take place subject to meeting certain criteria, and they may in instances be an effective risk management technique. However, I personally believe that we should not lose sight of the bigger picture and lessons from the GFC. In particular, we should ask ourselves: are there system-wide risks that warrant closer attention? For example, what are the risks if NBFI investors of SRTs are in turn borrowing from other banks? Is there sufficient transparency about the interconnections and potential spillover of risks between banks and NBFIs in these – and other – markets? A natural starting point to help answer these questions is to remind ourselves of the lessons from the GFC.

Just like a sailor needs steady winds, strong sails and safety gear for times of stress to ensure a smooth voyage, a bank requires strong prudential regulation and supervision to ensure stability. And its board and senior management should display the leadership and competency of a veteran captain. In addition, it is critical that the Committee remains vigilant and pursues a forward-looking approach to assessing risks and vulnerabilities to help reduce the risk of the global banking system being blown off course into financial storms.

The Committee’s work should also continue to be anchored by rigorous empirical analysis and not succumb to short-term or specific interests of some external stakeholders. And the GHOS agreed to mark a clear end to the Basel III policy agenda in 2020 when it noted that any further potential adjustments to Basel III “will be limited in nature and consistent with the Committee’s evaluation work”.¹³ This is why the Committee is pursuing analytical work based on empirical evidence to assess whether specific features of the Basel Framework performed as intended during the 2023 banking turmoil, such as liquidity risk and interest rate risk in the banking book.¹⁴ On this note, we recently provided a progress report to the G20 which outlines the progress we have made in the area of liquidity risk.¹⁵ This is a good start, but there is still more work to be done. Structural changes affecting the financial system, such as the ongoing digitalisation of finance and role of social media, require policymakers and supervisors to remain alert and be open-minded as to whether any additional regulatory and supervisory measures are needed.

Principle 2: All hands on deck

My second guiding principle is the need for global and transparent engagement with a wide range of stakeholders.

Financial stability is a global public good that requires cross-border cooperation. An open global financial system requires global prudential standards. Failure on this count could result in regulatory fragmentation, regulatory arbitrage and a potential “race to the bottom” leading to a dilution of banks’ resilience.¹⁶

So I will strive to build on the strong track record of Committee members to cooperate and collaborate in tackling cross-border financial stability challenges and shoring up the resilience of the global banking system. We have witnessed the benefits of global cooperation throughout the Committee’s history, including with the Concordat, Basel I, II and III, and the Basel Core Principles, and of course more recently during the Covid-19 period and last year’s banking turmoil. And in a world facing major geopolitical uncertainty, and where the merits of multilateralism are sometimes questioned, it is even more critical for the Committee to remind all stakeholders of the necessity of cross-border cooperation.

The need for cooperation is not just among Committee members themselves. Given the increasingly cross-sectoral and cross-cutting nature of developments affecting the global financial system – such as the ongoing digitalisation of finance, the growing role of NBFIs, the increasing nodes of interconnections among banks, central counterparties and NBFIs, or climate-related financial risks – the Committee will need to increasingly liaise with a wide range of authorities. This includes ongoing cooperation with central banks and supervisory authorities outside the Basel Committee’s membership, but also financial sector authorities in charge of overseeing conduct, resolution, deposit insurance, payment systems, securities and other NBFIs. In fact, for certain topics there may also be a need to go beyond the financial sector sphere and liaise with authorities with responsibility for accounting, competition, data privacy and security, just to mention a few.

To this end, it is critical that the Committee continues to seek the views of a wide range of stakeholders, including academics, civil society, legislators, market participants and the general public. Even if we may have different views on specific elements of the Committee’s work, these engagements unquestionably enhance the Committee’s outputs by bringing in different perspectives.

Principle 3: Keep your heading steady

My third principle is the importance for the Committee to act as a lighthouse, cutting through the fog and stormy conditions.

Bank regulation and financial supervision are an anchor to help prevent banks from drifting into risky waters that could endanger the entire economy. A resilient and healthy banking system is one that can best support households and businesses through the robust provision of key financial services across the financial cycle.¹⁷

Let me give you an example from my home country. Before the pandemic, the initial set of Basel III standards were fully implemented in Sweden. These reforms significantly increased Swedish banks’ resilience to shocks. In addition, the Swedish authorities activated the Basel III countercyclical buffer and set it at 2.5%, with the aim to further enhance Swedish banks’ resilience. Doing so allowed us to release this buffer in response to the Covid-19 crisis, which in turn helped Swedish banks to absorb shocks and to lend to creditworthy households and companies throughout the pandemic. The releasability of this buffer facilitated its drawdown by banks in a way that made it genuinely usable.

It may be tempting for some to argue that regulations should be watered down and that supervision should be less intrusive, in order to promote lending to specific sectors or to “unlock” economic growth. But, as with other areas of economic policymaking, any perceived short-term gains are usually more than offset by longer-term pain. Shaving off a few basis points of capital will not unlock a wave of new lending, but it will weaken your resilience. More generally, being well capitalised is a competitive advantage for banks and their shareholders, as it ensures that they can continue to grow and invest in profitable projects across the financial cycle. The Committee’s work should therefore continue to be centred around its mandate.

To be clear, this is entirely compatible with stable and healthy earnings that are fundamental to banking and financial stability. So it is reassuring that the sample of banks for which we regularly collect data – many of which are represented here today – have over time been able to both meet new regulatory requirements, make healthy profits and pay out significant dividends. For example, in 2011 banks faced a CET1 capital shortfall from Basel III of about €485 billion. Since then, their profits have exceeded €4 trillion and banks have paid out over €1.3 trillion of common share dividends, while at the same time building capital and liquidity buffers to meet the new requirements.¹⁸

More generally, the Committee will continue to focus its work on those prudential areas that require a global and coordinated response. Its outputs will continue to take the form of global minimum standards to provide a common financial stability baseline across jurisdictions. Jurisdictions are, of course, free to go beyond this baseline if the size and structure of their banking system and the associated risks warrant additional measures. Such measures only reinforce global financial stability. Just as importantly, we will continue to promote strong supervision, including by sharing supervisory experiences and, when needed, developing additional guidance to assist supervisors worldwide.

In that regard, I am sure all of us can agree that it is in our collective best interest to have global standards. We may have different opinions about Basel III, but I think we can all agree that having a globally consistent level playing field is preferable to a patchwork of disparate regulations. A global compromise – however imperfect it may appear to some – is preferable to a free-for-all framework. Internationally active banks then have a common minimum regulatory baseline which they can manage their business around. Supervisors are able to better assess the relative resilience of their banks across jurisdictions. The scope for regulatory arbitrage is reduced. Level playing fields are enhanced. Now compare this with a fragmented bank regulatory world, where banks would have to comply with completely different rules across borders with no common minimum baseline. Such a scenario could also trigger a race to the bottom across jurisdictions, resulting in a frail regulatory framework that would threaten global financial stability and banks’ own viability. We would all be worse off in such a situation. It is therefore in your own interest to avoid such a scenario and to promote a common and consistent implementation of Basel III.

Finally, we should keep the fundamentals of bank regulation and supervision in mind. While it may be tempting to focus on the “newest” trends affecting the banking system, we should not lose sight of the more traditional risks, such as credit risk and liquidity risk. Regarding the former, despite repeated headwinds over the past few years, the feared wave of financial problems for households and corporate defaults has yet to appear. Yet I am personally concerned about some stakeholders’ seeming complacency in assuming that the worst is over and that the seas are calm. It is a universal truth that a calm sea does not make a clever sailor.

With continued uncertainty about interest rate trajectories and the economic outlook, hidden currents and unseen reefs could still pose a challenge. Banks and supervisors must remain vigilant to such risks.

Principle 4: Sailing to simplicity

My last principle is to ensure that the Committee continues to adequately balance risk sensitivity with simplicity and comparability. Finance and banking are complex activities, so there is perhaps an understandable temptation to match that complexity in the regulatory framework.

Yet one does not always fight fire with fire. Undue complexity in prudential regulation can undermine the ability for a bank’s board and senior management to fully understand the risk profile of their bank. It can also impede supervisors’ ability to effectively assess the resilience of banks and create opaque opportunities for arbitrage. And while complex rules may sound conceptually appealing, they may also prove to be challenging to operationalise in practice.

Banking is as much about risk as it is about uncertainty.¹⁹ In such a world, simpler approaches can sometimes be more robust and outperform more complex ones.²⁰ So I personally think that policymaking initiatives should ensure that sufficient attention is placed at striking the right balance between risk sensitivity, simplicity and comparability.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Committee will continue to be guided by its mandate of strengthening the regulation, supervision and practices of banks worldwide. In the near term, when it comes to Basel III, all GHOS members have unanimously reaffirmed their expectation of implementing all aspects of the framework in full, consistently and as soon as possible.²¹

More generally, fulfilling our mandate requires us all to remember that:
- Banks’ boards and senior management are the captains of their ships. You have both the primary and ultimate responsibility for overseeing and managing risks. Regulation and supervision can provide safeguards, but cannot and should not be a substitute for your role in managing your risks prudently.
- Global bank prudential standards are a public good. We are collectively all better off in a world with global standards than in an autarkic one. Lobbying for deviations at a national level can perhaps provide short-term (private) gains but will ultimately threaten global financial stability. As internationally active banks, it is not in your interest to sail in such an environment.
- We cannot forget the lessons from past banking crises to prepare effectively for the future. In a financial system undergoing profound structural transformations, such as the digitalisation of finance, the Committee should keep an open mind as to whether additional adjustments to the Basel Framework are warranted over the medium term. And we will focus on global financial stability issues that require a global response.
As Chair, I am fully committed to leading the Committee in that direction.

References

Aikman, D, M Glaesic, G Gigerenzer, S Kapadia, K Kastikopoulos, A Kothiyal, E Murphy and T Neumann (2021): “Taking uncertainty seriously: simplicity versus complexity in financial regulation”, Industrial and Corporate Change, vol 30, no 2, April.

Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) (2020): “Governors and Heads of Supervision commit to ongoing coordinated approach to mitigate Covid-19 risks to the global banking system and endorse future direction of Basel Committee work”, press release, 30 November.

— (2022a): Evaluation of the impact and efficacy of the Basel III reforms, December.

— (2022b): Evaluation of the impact and efficacy of the Basel III reforms – Annex, December.

— (2023): Report on the 2023 banking turmoil, October.

— (2024a): “Erik Thedéen appointed as Chair of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision”, press release, 13 May.

— (2024b): “Governors and Heads of Supervision reiterate commitment to Basel III implementation and provide update on cryptoasset standard”, press release, 13 May.

— (2024c): “BCBS dashboards”, September.

— (2024d): The 2023 banking turmoil and liquidity risk: a progress report, October.

Carstens, A (2019): “The role of regulation, implementation and research in promoting financial stability”, keynote address at the Bank of Spain and CEMFI Second Conference on Financial Stability, Madrid, 3 June.

Hernández de Cos, P (2019): “The future path of the Basel Committee: some guiding principles”, keynote speech at the Institute for International Finance Annual Membership Meeting, Washington DC, 17 October.

— (2022): “A resilient transition to net zero”, remarks at the International Economic Forum of the Americas, 28th edition of the Conference of Montreal, 11 July.

— (2024): “Building on 50 years of global cooperation”, keynote speech at the 23rd International Conference of Banking Supervisors, Basel, 24 April.

Knight, F (1921): Risk, uncertainty and profit, Houghton Mifflin.

Laeven, L and F Valencia (2018): “Systemic banking crises revisited”, IMF Working Paper, no 18/206.

S&P Global (2024): “Banks ramp up credit risk transfers to optimise regulatory capital”, 22 February.

Viterbo, A (2019): “The European Union in the transnational financial regulatory arena: the case of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision”, Journal of International Economic Law, vol 1, no 24, June.

This speech and the views expressed are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the views and/or position of the BIS or CPMI.
MIL OSI Global Banks –
January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: Garamendi Honors 42 Women at Annual Women of the Year Awards

Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman John Garamendi – Representing California’s 3rd Congressional District

BENICIA, CA – Today, at his 11th annual Women of the Year event, Congressman John Garamendi (D-CA) honored 42 women from the 8th Congressional District of California who are leaders and visionaries in their communities. These honorees have all made significant contributions to society through public service, business, education, and the local economy.

“Every year, I have the privilege of celebrating the remarkable achievements and contributions of outstanding women in California’s 8th District,” Garamendi said. “These leaders come from diverse backgrounds, and each has had a profound impact on their communities and those around them. It is a privilege to honor their efforts.”

“Their commitment and passion for service merit this recognition, and through this award, their contributions will be preserved and documented in the official Congressional Record in Washington, D.C.,” Garamendi said.

You can view photos and biographies of this year’s honorees here.

A legislative update that was shared at the event is available here.

A video of the event can be found here.

The list of 2024 Women of the Year Honorees is included below:

Contra Costa County:

Angel Greer (Pittsburg)

Barbara Akoro (Bay Point)

Bisa French (Richmond)

Blanca Hernandez (Crockett)

Carole Paterson (Fairfield)

Claryssa Wilson (Antioch)

Dr. Myra Altman (Kensington)

Genoveva Garcia Calloway (San Pablo)

Harpreet Sidhu (Hercules)

LaShonda White (Richmond)

Linda Whitmore (Richmond)

Lori Ogorchock (Antioch)

Maria Theresa Viramontes (Richmond)

Maureen Toms (Pinole)

Myrtle Braxton (Richmond)

Patricia Durham (El Cerrito)

Ruthie Abelson Olivas (Pinole)

Tamara Shiloh (Richmond)

Solano County:

Brigette Hunley (Fairfield)

Caroline Villarreal (Fairfield)

Captain Rachel Marron (Travis Air Force Base)

Chief Master Sergeant Sandrine Hanley (Travis Air Force Base)

Chief Master Sargeant Laura Hoover (Travis Air Force Base)

Colonel Lisa Palmer (Travis Air Force Base)

Daria Bautista (Travis Air Force Base)

Dinah Villanueva-Ryan (Vallejo)

Dr. Bonnie Hamilton (Fairfield)

Dr. Diane Dooley (Benicia)

Dr. Tiffáni Thomas (Suisun City)

Dr. Rozzana Verder-Aliga (Vallejo)

Guillermina Loera-Diaz (Vallejo)

Gregoria Torres (Vallejo)

Kathy Kerridge (Benicia)

Keycha Gallon (Vallejo)

Kristina Kauzinger (Vacaville)

Lieutenant Colonel Christie Taylor (Travis Air Force Base)

Major Ava T. Margerison (Travis Air Force Base)

Sigrid J. Perkins (Travis Air Force Base)

Simone Lane (Vallejo)

Sriha Srinivasen (Fairfield)

Tonya Robinson (Suisun City)

Viola Robertson (Vallejo)

###

MIL OSI USA News –

January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI Submissions: Myanmar/Bangladesh: Rohingya community facing gravest threats since 2017 – Amnesty International
Source: Amnesty International

Rohingya say Arakan Army drove them from their homes and killed civilians

Urgent need for international support and humanitarian aid as thousands of new arrivals seek protection in Bangladesh

Bangladesh must refrain from sending Rohingya back to Myanmar, where indiscriminate military air strikes also killing civilians.

Newly arrived Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh need urgent access to food, shelter and medical attention after enduring the worst violence against their communities since the Myanmar military-led campaign in 2017, Amnesty International said today.

Testimony shows how Rohingya families forced to leave their homes in Myanmar have been caught in the middle of increasingly fierce clashes between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army, one of many armed groups opposing the junta. Hundreds of thousands have been internally displaced and upwards of tens of thousands of Rohingya have crossed the border or are waiting to cross the border to seek refuge in Bangladesh.

“Once again, the Rohingya people are being driven from their homes and dying in scenes tragically reminiscent of the 2017 exodus. We met people who told us they lost parents, siblings, spouses, children and grandchildren as they fled fighting in Myanmar. But this time, they are facing persecution on two fronts, from the rebel Arakan Army and the Myanmar military, which is forcibly conscripting Rohingya men,” Amnesty International’s Secretary General, Agnès Callamard, said.

“Those lucky enough to make it to Bangladesh do not have enough to eat, a proper place to sleep, or even their own clothes.”

The 2021 military coup in Myanmar has had a catastrophic impact on human rights. Myanmar’s military has killed more than 5,000 civilians and arrested more than 25,000 people. Since the coup, Amnesty has documented indiscriminate air strikes by the Myanmar military, torture and other ill-treatment in prison, collective punishment and arbitrary arrests.

The recent escalation in Myanmar’s Rakhine State started in November 2023 with the launch of a rebel counter-offensive by the Arakan Army and two other armed groups that has posed the biggest threat to military control since the 2021 coup. Myanmar’s military has responded by stepping up indiscriminate air strikes that have killed, injured and displaced civilians.

The impact on Rakhine State, where many of the more than 600,000 Rohingya in Myanmar still live, has been severe, with towns transformed into battlegrounds.

In Bangladesh, authorities have been pushing Rohingya fleeing the conflict back into Myanmar, while those who reached the Bangladesh camps told of a desperate shortage of essential supplies and services there.

In September 2024, Amnesty interviewed 22 people in individual and group settings who recently sought refuge in Bangladesh, joining more than one million Rohingya refugees, the majority having arrived in 2017 or earlier.

The new arrivals said the Arakan Army unlawfully killed Rohingya civilians, drove them from their homes and left them vulnerable to attacks, allegations the group denies. These attacks faced by the Rohingya come on top of indiscriminate air strikes by the Myanmar military that have killed both Rohingya and ethnic Rakhine civilians.

Many Rohingya, including children, who were fleeing the violence to Bangladesh drowned while crossing by boat.

Bangladesh pushbacks deepen woes of Rohingya

The people Amnesty International interviewed in Bangladesh had recently fled Maungdaw Township in northern Rakhine State, which the Arakan Army tried to capture from the Myanmar military after it seized Buthidaung Township in May.

Many were survivors of a drone and mortar attack that took place on 5 August on the shores of the Naf River that divides Myanmar and Bangladesh.

All those interviewed stressed that their urgent priority now was access to basic services in the camp, including aid, shelter, money, security, food and healthcare.

They were also terrified of being sent back to Myanmar. But Amnesty International found that Bangladeshi border authorities have forcibly returned Rohingya people fleeing the violence, in violation of the international law principle of non-refoulment, which prohibits returning or transferring anyone to a country where they are at risk of serious human rights violations.

A 39-year-old Rohingya man told Amnesty International he fled Maungdaw with his family on 5 August 2024. In the early morning of 6 August, their boat was near the Bangladesh shore and started taking on water before tipping over. Residents told him later that Bangladeshi border guards prevented them from helping.

“The border guards were nearby, but they did not help us,” he said.

He said he passed out and woke up on the beach to see dead bodies washed ashore. He later discovered that all his six children, aged between two and 15, had drowned. He said his sister also lost six of her children.

Bangladesh border guards detained him. The next night he and the others with him were sent back to Myanmar, where they found another boat and returned. According to one credible estimate, there have been more than 5,000 cases of refoulement this year, with a spike following the 5 August attacks.

“Sending people back to a country where they are at real risk of being killed is not only a violation of international law; it will also force people to take greater risks while making the journey to avoid detection, such as traveling by night or on longer routes,” Agnès Callamard said.

The Rohingya who made it to the refugee camps are living off the generosity of relatives there. New arrivals in particular expressed concern that they were unable to register with the UN refugee agency for essential support. As a result, many are going without meals, and are afraid to venture out for fear of deportation, even when in need of medical care.

Interviewees also mentioned the deteriorating security situation in the camps, due mainly to the presence of two Rohingya armed groups: the Rohingya Solidarity Organization and the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army. Myanmar’s shifting conflict dynamics in Rakhine State have meant that some Rohingya militants have aligned with the junta in Myanmar. As a result, Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh fear that they or their family members could be snatched and forcibly taken back and conscripted to fight there.

The vast majority hoped for resettlement in a third country.

“We are constantly afraid of moving from one place to another because we don’t have any documents. We are newcomers here, and we have also heard about people being abducted,” a 40-year-old woman said.

“The interim Bangladesh government and humanitarian relief organizations must work together so that people can have access to essential services such as food, adequate shelter and medical care,” Agnès Callamard said.

“Bangladesh must also ensure that it does not forcibly return people to escalating conflict. Meanwhile, the international community needs to step up with funds and assistance for those living in the refugee camps.”

In a meeting with Amnesty International, Bangladesh officials rejected the allegations of refoulement but said border guards “intercept” people trying to cross the border. They also stressed that the country cannot accommodate any more Rohingya refugees.

Arakan Army and Myanmar military abuses

The Myanmar military has persecuted Rohingya for decades and expelled them en masse in 2017. It is now forcing them to join the army as part of a nationwide military service law. The Myanmar military has also reportedly reached an informal “peace” pact with the Rohingya Solidarity Organization, an older Rohingya armed group that has reemerged as a force in recent months. These complex developments have further inflamed tensions between the Rohingya and the ethnic Rakhine, whom the Arakan Army purports to represent.

The rise in fighting nationwide has also resulted in mounting allegations of abuses by armed groups fighting against the military. Many Rohingya described the fatal consequences of being trapped between the two sides.

“Every time there is a conflict, we get killed,” one Rohingya interviewee told Amnesty.

A 42-year-old shopkeeper said that on 1 August, a munition of unknown origin landed outside his house in Maungdaw, killing his 4-year-old son. On 6 August, the Arakan Army – whose fighters he identified by their badges – entered his village in Maungdaw and relocated all the Hindu and Buddhist families to another area they said was safe, while the Rohingya families were left in place.

“They began causing unrest [using it as a base to launch attacks] in the village, which forced us, the Muslim families, to leave on 7 August. We were the only ethnic group left in the village. It seemed like they did this intentionally,” he said.

When he later took shelter in downtown Maungdaw on 15 August, he said he saw Arakan Army “snipers” shoot two Rohingya civilians. “I witnessed the Arakan Army kill a woman right on the spot with gunfire while she went to a pond to collect water … there was another man who was sitting and smoking in front of his house and he too was shot right in his head and killed.”

In response to questions by Amnesty International, the Arakan Army said on 13 October that these allegations were unsubstantiated or not credible. It said it issued warnings for civilians to leave Maungdaw ahead of its operations and helped evacuate people, that it instructs its soldiers to distinguish between civilians and combatants, and that in case of breaches, it takes disciplinary action.

Since late last year, Amnesty International has separately documented Myanmar military air strikes that have killed civilians and destroyed civilian infrastructure in Rakhine State. This year, the impact of the Myanmar military conscripting Rohingya has added to the historical, systemic discrimination and apartheid already experienced by Rohingya.

“I felt really bad that they were involving us in their fight, even though we had nothing to do with it. It felt like they were laying the foundation to get us killed,” a 63-year-old cattle trader said.

Families wiped out

On 5 August 2024, the intensity of bombardments and gunfights between the Myanmar military and Arakan Army forced scores of people from Maungdaw to seek shelter in sturdier homes near the Naf river border with Bangladesh.

Recalling that day, the Rohingya cattle trader said the Arakan Army was “getting closer to our village, capturing the surrounding villages … they flew drones in the sky, holding them there for about an hour, and could drop bombs from the drones whenever and wherever they wanted with remote control. They killed so many people.”

That afternoon, many recounted seeing a drone and hearing multiple blasts. The cattle trader said he heard eight to 10 blasts, and that bombs were exploding “before even touching the ground”. He saw a small unmanned aerial device flying near the crowd that looked like a “rounded-shaped drone” with something attached underneath.

He said his wife, daughter, son-in-law, and two of his grandchildren were killed, while the youngest grandchild, aged one, was seriously injured and later had her lower left leg amputated at the knee in Bangladesh.

One 18-year-old woman from Maungdaw said she lost both parents and two of her sisters, aged seven and five, during the blast. At the time of the attack, her father was carrying one of her sisters while her mother carried the other. When they reached the Maungdaw shore in the afternoon in search of boats to cross to Bangladesh, an explosion occurred.

“We quickly hid in the mud, sitting down in the muddy water, and then another bomb exploded, killing my parents, sisters and many others,” she said. “I saw it all with my own eyes – my parents and sisters were killed when the bomb shrapnel hit them.”

While she didn’t see a drone, she said the “big bomb” that killed her family members “came flying”. The sound has haunted her ever since. She said she saw about 200 bodies on the shore, a figure cited independently by another interviewee.

Almost everyone Amnesty spoke to said they lost at least one relative while trying to flee Myanmar. Medical records shared with Amnesty International from the days after the attack show treatment for bomb blast injuries after arriving in Bangladesh. Since August there has been a dramatic increase in treatment of war wounds from those fleeing Myanmar.

In its response to Amnesty International, the Arakan Army said that the Myanmar military or aligned armed groups were likely those most responsible and that eyewitnesses or survivors may be affiliated with militant groups.

“The Arakan Army must allow an independent, impartial and effective investigation into possible violations carried out during their operations. Both the Arakan Army and the Myanmar military must abide by international humanitarian law,” Agnès Callamard said.

“We continue to call on the UN Security Council to refer the entire situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court.”
MIL OSI – Submitted News –
January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI Security: Defense News: Secretary of the Navy Visits Georgia Tech Research Institute, Underscoring Commitment to Innovation and Collaboration
Source: United States Navy

ATLANTA – Oct. 23, 2024 – The Secretary of the Navy Hon. Carlos Del Toro visited the Georgia Tech Research Institute today to highlight the vital role of research and development in maintaining naval dominance and warfighting excellence. The Secretary addressed Georgia Tech students and faculty, and Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps students from Georgia Tech, Spelman College and Morehouse College, emphasizing the importance of their contributions to national security.

The Secretary’s visit underscored the Navy’s commitment to fostering strategic partnerships with academic institutions like Georgia Tech. GTRI, the applied research division of Georgia Tech, plays a crucial role in developing cutting-edge technologies for the Department of the Navy and the Department of Defense.

“Georgia Tech is a powerhouse of innovation, and GTRI’s research is critical to ensuring our Sailors and Marines have the technological edge they need to prevail in any conflict,” said Secretary Del Toro. “The work being done here, particularly in areas like artificial intelligence, cyber-physical systems, and electromagnetic spectrum operations, is directly aligned with the Navy’s strategic priorities.”

The Secretary highlighted GTRI’s contributions to the DON, including:
- Collaborative Research: GTRI works closely with the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and other DoD entities to address specific technological needs.
- R&D Contributions: GTRI develops advanced systems such as autonomous vehicles, millimeter wave radar technologies, and electronic warfare solutions.
- Prototyping and Testing: GTRI provides facilities for testing and validating new technologies to meet military specifications.
- Technology Transition: GTRI focuses on translating research outcomes into practical applications, enhancing operational capabilities for the Navy and broader defense community.
The Secretary’s remarks also emphasized the importance of innovation in the face of evolving global challenges.

“To win the fight of the future, we must embrace and implement emerging technologies,” said Del Toro. “We are in an innovation race, and it is one we must win.”

The Secretary highlighted several DON innovation initiatives, including:
- The Naval Science and Technology Strategy: This strategy guides the Navy and Marine Corps’ investments in science and technology research.
- The Naval Innovation Center (NIC) at the Naval Postgraduate School: The NIC accelerates the innovation process by bringing research concepts out of the lab and into the field faster.
- The Department of the Navy’s Science and Technology Board: This board provides independent advice and counsel on matters relating to science, technology, and acquisition.
- The Disruptive Capabilities Office (DCO): The DCO identifies and implements already-available or emerging technologies to address the fleet’s capability gaps.
“With today’s enemies developing more advanced technological threats, we are grateful that the Secretary of the Navy made time to visit our Atlanta Region NROTC Midshipmen,” said Atlanta Region NROTC Commanding Officer Capt. Jesus Rodriguez. “Our future Naval officers were provided with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity when the Secretary personally impressed on them the importance of continued studies in science and technology. Our Midshipmen and NROTC staff are all appreciative for the opportunity to meet with and listen to our Navy’s leadership emphasize the importance of our students’ initiative in technological development during their Naval careers.”

The Secretary concluded by issuing a call to action to the students in attendance.

“Innovation must permeate every aspect of our department’s approach to deliver technologies and capabilities at a speed and scale necessary for our Navy and Marine Corps to confront the challenges of today and the future.”

Read Secretary Del Toro’s remarks here.

###

MIL Security OSI –
January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI Security: Defense News: Secretary Del Toro As-Written Remarks at the Georgia Tech Research Institute

Source: United States Navy

Introduction/Thank You

Good afternoon, everyone!

It is wonderful to be with you at Georgia Tech Research Institute, the future of engineering, science, and technology.

President Cabrera, thank you for your leadership of the students here at Georgia Tech, the future scientists, engineers, innovators, and problem-solvers of our country.

Dr. Hudgens, thank you for your leadership and vision for the Georgia Tech Research Institute, and all that you are doing to advance our national security interests.

I thank the future Navy and Marine Corps Officers from the NROTC consortium here with us today.

Thank you for answering the call to service—for choosing a path both challenging and difficult. I look forward to you joining our Fleet and Force.

To all of our Georgia Tech faculty and students, distinguished visitors, and guests—welcome, and thank you for your time today.

World Today

As you have read in the news, we face challenges in every corner of the world—from the Indo-Pacific, to Europe, to the Red Sea.

In Europe, we are approaching the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale and illegal invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine is fighting not only for their own liberty and freedom—they are fighting to protect democracy in Europe and indeed around the world.

We proudly stand beside them in support for their just and noble cause.

For the first time since World War II, we face a comprehensive maritime power—our pacing challenge—in the Indo-Pacific.

The People’s Republic of China continues to exert its excessive maritime claims through their navy, coast guard, and maritime militia.

In the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, we have been working tirelessly alongside our NATO allies and Middle Eastern partners to protect innocent civilian mariners and commercial shipping from Iranian-aligned Houthi attacks.

Following the October 7th attacks in Israel one year ago, our Navy and Marine Corps were swiftly deployed to the region, forming an integrated force capable of responding to any threat.

Carrier Air Wing Three, our “Battle Axe,” played a pivotal role in protecting civilian mariners, deploying over sixty air-to-air missiles and over 420 air-to-surface weapons.

We mourn the loss of two trailblazing, combat-decorated naval aviators from Carrier Air Wing Three who passed away during a training event last week: Lieutenant Commander Lyndsay “Miley” Evans and Lieutenant Serena “Dug” Wileman.

Their sacrifice reminds us that what we ask of our Sailors and Marines is anything but routine.

And our hearts go out to the families and friends of these brave and selfless warfighters.

The Bataan Amphibious Ready Group, with the embarked 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, made significant contributions in the region by deterring hostile Houthi attacks and preventing the conflict from escalating throughout the region.

Our warships—including the Carney, Mason, Gravely, Laboon, Eisenhower, and Thomas Hudner—have demonstrated exceptional performance under fire, successfully deterring and defeating missile and drone attacks targeting innocent maritime shipping.

Two of our highly capable destroyers, the USS Cole (DDG 67)—a warship which carries a proud legacy of standing tall to acts of terrorism—and the USS Bulkeley (DDG 84)—which will always have a special place in my naval carer as her first Commanding Officer—aided our Israeli allies in shooting down Iranian ballistic missiles.

I am incredibly proud of the professionalism, dedication, and resilience shown by our Cole and Bulkeley Sailors.

These brave young men and women illustrate the consistent excellence and effectiveness expected of our United States Navy.

Our Navy-Marine Corps Team remains at the center of global and national security—maintaining freedom of the seas, international security, and global stability.

DON Innovation Initiatives

To win the fight of the future, we must embrace and implement emerging technologies.

We stand on the shoulders of giants in innovation.

And delivering technology which changes the very nature of warfighting is in our DNA.

A little over a year ago, I stood in the courtyard of the Pentagon to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the Naval Research Lab—the place that invented radar, GPS, and the first satellite tracking system—and a place I worked at as a young lieutenant commander.

At that time, I challenged the research, engineering, and technology developers of today to take their place in the company of those innovation giants.

I challenged my team to innovate at the speed of relevance to deliver concepts of operations and capabilities which bolster deterrence and expand our warfighting advantage.

I challenged my Chief of Naval Research to align the Office of Naval Research’s investment in science and technology research—including the research conducted here at Georgia Tech—with each effort aimed at addressing issues we face as a maritime nation.

Within three months of my challenge to the Chief of Naval Research, he delivered.

Our new Naval Science and Technology Strategy now drives our Navy and Marine Corps’ innovation investments in science and technology research during this decisive period.

This strategy is a global call to service for scientists, engineers, inventors, and innovators from academia, industry, and government to work with us in solving naval problems to ensure our freedom and way of life.

And the Georgia Tech Research Institute has answered this call.

During this past fiscal year, ONR completed 22 grants here at GTRI worth $23.6 million, and Georgia Tech currently has 72 active contracts and grants with the Navy worth $216 million.

These ONR grants support research and development of technology in cyber, AI and autonomy, materials and electronics, as well as ocean, atmosphere, and space—focus areas in our Naval S&T Strategy.

Service to our national security is indeed the engine of GTRI.

Another critical investment we have made as a result of our strategic change is the establishment of the Naval Innovation Center at the Naval Postgraduate School.

The NIC will enhance and accelerate the innovation process at NPS by driving “ideas to impact,” bringing research concepts out of the lab and into the field faster by empowering students and partners across the entire Naval Research and Development Establishment to work with the Naval innovation ecosystem and industry—in a whole-of-Navy approach—to speed the delivery of warfighting advantages to our Naval forces.

Furthermore, we are supporting the construction of a purposefully-designed facility to house the NIC at the Naval Postgraduate School, providing a space for collaboration, defense-focused experimentation, and demonstration of operational use cases to ensure the right technology is evolving.

S&T Board One Year Update

Last fall, I also announced the establishment of the Department of the Navy’s Science and Technology Board, with the intent that the board provide independent advice and counsel to the Department on matters and policies relating to scientific, technical, manufacturing, acquisition, logistics, medicine, and business management functions.

Our Science and Technology Board just completed its inaugural year.

Under the expert leadership of former Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig, this impressive group of thought leaders with expertise in government, industry, and academia has completed an ambitious research agenda to identify new technologies for rapid adoption.

Since I signed out the Board’s initial tasking in February, they have achieved the impressive feat of undertaking and concluding six studies, delivering near term, practical recommendations, that the Department of the Navy can quickly implement.

I have accepted recommendation reports from the Board and issued implementation guidance related to the path forward on unmanned systems, improving sailor physical and mental health, mission assurance of digital infrastructure, and capitalizing on opportunities for additive manufacturing.

In fact, Georgia Tech’s own Chief Manufacturing Officer and Manufacturing Institute Executive Director Dr. Tom Kurfess, lent his breadth and depth of expertise in leading a study on additive manufacturing which I accepted last month.

It is a testament to the Board’s energy and dedication, that it is already embarking on additional projects to keep our Navy at the leading edge of technology and innovation.

Innovation Closer to the Fight

Similar to the focus of our S&T Board of Advisors, who are looking at today’s problems and ways that technology can provide new ways to tackle our operational challenges, I chartered a Disruptive Capabilities Office last January to look at already-available or emerging technology to address the Fleet’s capability gaps.

And they have delivered.

DCO identified meaty organizational, doctrinal, and technological advancements that the Navy has implemented, within six months, to close an emergent warfighting gap in Counter-UAS base defense for the CENTCOM area of responsibility.

DCO is also leading an effort to combine innovative commercial space-enabled capabilities in coordination with the National Reconnaissance Office, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, U.S. Coast Guard, and other governmental agencies to enhance Maritime Domain Awareness for the Department of the Navy along with our allies and partners.

Replicator and Capability-Based Delivery

My call to innovation has also put more “ready players on the field” as we look to grow force structure in the near term.

In the last twelve months, I have fielded varying sizes of unmanned surface vessels into the hands of our operators for use in experimentation, CONOP development, and for operation.

We are expanding our systems to include not only homogeneous but also heterogeneous collaborative autonomy.

I am extremely proud of my team’s leadership in this domain, to include our leadership in identifying and quickly procuring the capabilities that support Deputy Secretary of Defense Hicks’s “Replicator” initiative.

It is no accident that four of the five selected “Replicator” systems came out of the Department of the Navy’s innovation ecosystem.

And over the last year, our Department has expended more missiles than we have since the Second World War.

My Program Executive Office for Integrated Warfare Systems has been at the forefront of this fight.

Last year, I challenged that office to operate and field its systems as a “portfolio of capabilities”—and they have delivered.

The IWS RCO has been working hand-in-hand with our operators in the fight in the Red Sea to deliver innovations, in near-real time, as we continue to innovate—at speed.

Call to Action/Closing

I am extremely proud of everything our department has accomplished over the last three years, and I am excited for our Navy-Marine Corps team as we chart a course for the future—a future that will require us to respond and adapt to whatever geopolitical challenges our Nation may face.

To those Georgia Tech, Spellman, and Morehouse College students who are not affiliated with the NROTC program—if anything that I said today interests you, I encourage you to speak with me or a member of my staff to learn more about how you can join our team in the Navy or Marine Corps.

Service in the Navy and Marine Corps is more than just a job—it represents a chance to serve and become something much bigger than yourself.

And the Department of the Navy also provides numerous opportunities for public service beyond serving in uniform—we need engineers, scientists, and analysts in our Department.

As our Department continues to re-imagine and refocus our innovation efforts, I encourage all of you—our nation’s scientists, engineers, researchers, and inventors—to join us.

No matter how you serve, you’ll be part of a team working together toward a shared goal.

We are indeed in an innovation race—and it is one we must win.

Innovation must permeate every aspect of our Department’s approach to deliver technologies and capabilities at a speed and scale necessary for our Navy and Marine Corps to confront the challenges of today and the future.

Thank you all for your commitment to the Department of the Navy, the maritime services, and indeed our Nation.

May God continue to bless our Sailors, Marines, Civilians, and their families stationed around the globe with fair winds and following seas.

MIL Security OSI –

January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: Graham: ICC Prosecutor Misconduct Allegations, Timeline Cast Moral Cloud Over Israeli Arrest Warrant Applications

US Senate News:

Source: United States Senator for South Carolina Lindsey Graham

WASHINGTON – Following media reports that International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan is facing allegations of misconduct, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) is calling for the immediate release of records pertaining to these allegations. Senator Graham points out that the harassment allegations surfaced in early May, just a few days prior to Prosecutor Khan canceling his scheduled trip to meet with Israeli officials, and instead abruptly announcing he applied for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant.

Graham wrote, “In the weeks before Prosecutor Khan applied for warrants, I worked with a bipartisan group of United States Senators to urge Prosecutor Khan to adhere to the Rome Statute in conducting his investigation. Specifically, on a May 1, 2024 phone call, this bipartisan group urged Prosecutor Khan to respect the principle of complementarity and to engage in good faith with Israeli officials before making any decision as to how to move forward against the State of Israel.”

He concluded, “It has now come to my attention through media reports that Prosecutor Khan was facing allegations of misconduct around the same time, and the resolution of this matter remains a mystery. The abrupt decision to cancel this visit to Israel, along with these contemporaneous allegations needs to be explained, and I request full transparency on the matter to ensure there is no conflict of interest. These media reports are disturbing, and I call for a release of the records pertaining to these allegations, including any decision not to open an investigation, and for an update on where this matter stands. Until such transparency is satisfactorily achieved, another cloud—a moral one—hangs over Prosecutor Khan’s abrupt decision to abandon engagement with Israel and seek arrest warrants.”

To read the full letter, click here.

MIL OSI USA News –

January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: ICYMI: US Navy: Projecting Strength and Building the Fleet of Tomorrow

US Senate News:

Source: United States Senator for South Carolina Lindsey Graham

US Navy: Projecting Strength and Building the Fleet of Tomorrow

By Senator Lindsey Graham and Morgan Ortagus

Fox News

October 23, 2024

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/us-navy-projecting-strength-and-building-fleet-tomorrow

It’s time for all Americans to grasp a hard truth: in a world that may be on the brink of World War III, our military budgets are inconsistent with the threats we face. This is especially the case with the budget of the Department of the Navy.

The bad news: the current Navy budget will not make a stronger military or a larger U.S. fleet a reality. The good news: through American innovation and more agile products, we can build a bigger and more efficient Navy.

However, President Biden’s proposed FY2025 budget of $257.6 billion for the Department of the Navy is well below inflation and does not provide for a more lethal Navy.

As both President Biden and President Trump certified, the most direct challenge facing the U.S. Navy today is from the People’s Republic of China. Therefore, strong investments must be made now to ensure the Navy, and most importantly the United States, can meet this threat head-on.

It comes as no shock to the reader that America and its allies and partners are facing an unprecedented deluge of maritime threats by the People’s Republic of China. The Chinese Navy alone has provoked a U.S. destroyer in the Taiwan Strait with dangerous maneuvers, harassed Taiwan with aggressive military exercises, entered America’s Exclusive Economic Zone in the Bering Sea, developed a jam-resistant submarine torpedo, and injured several Filipino sailors at and around Second Thomas Shoal.

These developments incrementally set the conditions for a direct conflict on the open seas. Meanwhile, Washington has been lulled into complacency by decades of maritime supremacy. Most concerning, the United States lacks the political resolve to shed the Navy’s Soviet-era mentality and adapt to the new era of great power competition.

To meet the moment’s maritime threats, America must choose between tough and tougher: make significant investments in our fleet or face the costs of inaction.

Section One: Expanding U.S. Shipbuilding Capacity and Cooperation with Allies

Our shipbuilding industrial base is grappling with significant delays and challenges, affecting major programs like the Columbia-class submarines, Constellation-class frigates, and Ford-class carriers. These delays are not only impacting the procurement of new ships, they are also impacting the ability to maintain the current fleet.

A great first step to combating the maritime threats our nation faces is to expand the physical footprint of the U.S. shipbuilding industry.

The U.S. shipbuilding industry is first in its class and the men and women that come to work every day in our nation’s shipyards build the world’s most lethal and capable warships. In states like South Carolina, there are a wealth of maritime industry suppliers and shipbuilders diligently producing the necessary components to construct our nation’s ships.

But that alone is not enough. China’s Bohai Shipyard boasts an annual capacity exceeding the total number of ships our Navy has launched since 2014.

In addition, China is rapidly expanding its existing shipyards and according to experts “has been investing so much in shipbuilding over the past 18 years that it can now build more ships in a month than the United States can in a year.”

By comparison, America only has four public shipyards and these yards focus on maintenance of submarines and aircraft carriers and not the construction of new vessels.

The Department of the Navy should look at states like South Carolina to build new shipyards to maximize the U.S. shipbuilding capacity and our maritime industry.

In addition, the Navy must expand maintenance capacity here in the states as well as in the Pacific. The U.S. Navy has already decided to augment its capacity by placing a submarine maintenance facility in Guam. This should be replicated for other vessels elsewhere.

It is clear that the need for more shipbuilding capacity is great and immediate. Investing here at home will certainly help address the need. At the same time, our nation should also not discount opportunities to work with others when the opportunity presents itself.

The U.S. Navy cannot afford to leave any stone unturned when thinking of innovative ways to grow the fleet as quickly as possible.

Section Two: Fleet Requirements and Capabilities

A fundamental step toward a 21st-century U.S. Navy is improving both the size and modernity of our existing fleet. The fleet currently consists of carriers, surface combatants, submarines, amphibious warships, combat logistics ships, fleet support vessels and mine warfare assets.

Yet this fleet is hardly agile or scalable enough to meet a Chinese maritime threat that includes drones, hypersonic missiles and other high-tech tools of warcraft.

Persistent gaps also remain in amphibious warfare and in contested logistics. Amphibious combat vehicles, landing vessels, and light warships are all needed in higher quantities for rapid and effective landings.

Unmanned and underwater systems are especially relevant to modern naval operations. Often at a fraction of the cost of manned vessels, these vessels – both large and small – perform intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance missions, logistics and strike operations.

They also relieve pressure on our high-demand, low-density assets while augmenting the fleet. The proof is in their success in Ukraine, where naval drones have successfully countered Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, forcing them into safe harbors and destroying dozens of Russian vessels.

In addition to their combat roles, unmanned systems are revolutionizing naval logistics. Unmanned logistics platforms can autonomously deliver supplies, ammunition, and fuel to forward-deployed forces, significantly extending the operational reach of our fleet.

These systems reduce the need for manned resupply missions, which are often vulnerable to enemy attacks, thereby enhancing the safety and efficiency of our operations. By integrating unmanned logistics into our naval strategy, we can maintain sustained operations in contested environments, ensuring our forces remain equipped and ready for extended engagements.

A possible way to advance the construction of these unmanned vessels is through an international partnership. Such a partnership could be modeled after the trilateral security partnership between the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia (AUKUS) for submarine production in Australia. An AUKUS-like agreement for unmanned systems could create a new pathway for faster construction of these unmanned platforms and increase the integration between partners.

China’s naval power is growing at an alarming rate, with close to 400 ships currently in service and projections of 435 by 2030. The impact of this expansion is worsened by our diminishing technology gap, as China advances its naval technology while the U.S. Navy struggles to build ships.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy’s latest shipbuilding assessment calls for 381 battle force ships (carriers, destroyers, amphibious ships, submarines, etc.) and 134 unmanned vehicles, totaling 515 vessels.

While it is great to have a roadmap, the U.S. Navy’s own shipbuilding plan projects that we would not reach 381 battle force ships until 2043 under the best scenario. This delay poses an unacceptable risk to our national security and could force our sailors into a fight they are underequipped to win.

To avoid that scenario and reduce the exposure of manned ships to enemy attacks, we must expedite shipbuilding with a focus on unmanned surface and subsurface systems that are affordable and quick to produce. America does not have to win a shipbuilding foot race, but we must strategically invest in both the capabilities and capacities to counter China’s growing maritime capabilities and protect our interests.

Section Three: Funding the Department of the Navy

The U.S. military budget is woefully underfunded for the threats our nation faces today. The U.S. is on target to spend only 3.1% of total GDP on defense in Fiscal Year 2025 and that percentage is projected to fall to a paltry 2.4% in 2034 under the Biden-Harris budget plan.

Budgetary “business as usual” will only widen the gap between U.S. and Chinese naval capabilities. With China’s defense budget growing in both size and sophistication, it is imperative the United States make greater, and smarter, investments of our own.

Increasing funding for the Navy’s ship procurement, known as the Shipbuilding and Conversion account, alone will not be enough. In order to address the shipbuilding problem, Congress should consider a comprehensive approach that includes strong and consistent funding across procurement, operations and maintenance, research and development, personnel and military construction accounts.

In order to do this, Congress will need to think outside the box as the current budgetary restraints limit the needed investments. Congress should form a “Fleet Investment Fund” – codifying the Navy’s entire budget growth at least 5% above inflation and more than the department’s topline request – covering all aspects of naval development and readiness.

Most importantly, this account should not be subject to any caps or restrictions within the president’s budget request to Congress each fiscal year. The formation of this account must be seen as a national imperative.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that the costs of these investments are great and will require tradeoffs and significant political capital, but the costs of inaction will be far greater. History demonstrates that adversaries are emboldened by America’s hesitation and deterred by its resolve. History proves that the U.S. Navy can adapt to evolving defense needs.

Since 1945, America has served as the global guarantor of open seas and freedom of navigation in contested waterways and critical trade routes. President Theodore Roosevelt stated before Congress in 1902 that “a good Navy is not a provocation to war. It is the surest guaranty of peace.”

Morgan Ortagus is the founder of Polaris National Security and formerly served as the spokesperson for the U.S. State Department under President Trump.

Republican Lindsey Graham represents South Carolina in the United States Senate.

MIL OSI USA News –

January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: Kennedy urges Blinken to secure Indo-Pacific naval base from Chinese threat after U.K. reaches Chagos Archipelago sovereignty deal

US Senate News:

Source: United States Senator John Kennedy (Louisiana)
View Kennedy’s remarks here.
MADISONVILLE, La. – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) today released this statement and sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken raising national security concerns over China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific region, and specifically the threat to the Chagos Archipelago, where a key U.S. Navy support facility currently operates on the island of Diego Garcia.
Earlier this month, the United Kingdom reached a deal to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius while allowing the U.S. Navy’s Diego Garcia facility to operate for the next 99 years.
“As you know, the Chagos Archipelago, specifically Diego Garcia, is of particular strategic significance to U.S. national security and our ability to maintain stability and project power in the region. The decision to give up the islands is dangerous and irresponsible, especially in the face of China’s increasing aggression,” Kennedy wrote.
“The presence of the U.S. military on Diego Garcia is a vital component of our defense posture in the Indo-Pacific. With the transfer of control to Mauritius, I am concerned about our ability to maintain the integrity of our operations in the region. Chinese ambitions, particularly their strategic interest in expanding influence over critical maritime chokepoints and naval installations, present a clear and present threat to regional stability. We are all but guaranteed to see an increase in nefarious Chinese behavior around Diego Garcia following what has become a familiar playbook—Chinese fishing boats conducting surveillance, and debt trap diplomacy to ensure Chinese control of critical infrastructure,” he continued.
“Given the evolving geopolitical landscape, America must act proactively to secure this region from external influences that could jeopardize a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Kennedy concluded.
Kennedy’s full statement is available here.
The full letter is available here.

MIL OSI USA News –

January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: Ernst Blasts Biden-Harris for More Effectively Arming Our Adversaries Than Allies

US Senate News:

Source: United States Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA)

WASHINGTON – After the Biden-Harris administration delivered expired and moldy military aid to Taiwan, U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, blasted Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and the White House for once again undercutting a key partner and undermining American leadership.
This latest embarrassing episode of incompetence comes as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ weakness on the world stage has lit the world on fire and fueled Chinese aggression in the South China Sea and beyond.
“This embarrassing debacle highlights shortcomings in the Biden-Harris administration’s counter-China strategy, undermining our relationship with a key regional partner, weakening deterrence against China, and wasting hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars. Last month the Department of Defense Inspector General (IG) published a report highlighting the significant failures in the oversight, planning, and execution of the presidential drawdown authority (PDA) process. These failures are particularly alarming, not only because of Taiwan’s critical role as a key security partner but also because they could impact the confidence of other U.S. allies and partners that rely on timely and reliable defense support,” wrote Ernst, a combat veteran.
“The Department of Defense failed to follow established guidelines for delivering military assistance to Taiwan. More than 67% of the equipment — including over 340 pallets — sustained water damage while stored at Travis Air Force Base for three months due to inadequate storage facilities. This resulted in the shipment of over 3,000 moldy body armor plates and 500 wet tactical vests, equipment that is essential for the safety of Taiwanese personnel. Additionally, the report indicates that 2.7 million rounds of ammunition provided to Taiwan included expired stock and packaging errors, further raising concerns about quality control,” Ernst continued.
Click here to read the full letter.
Background:
Senator Ernst has exposed and held this administration accountable for repeatedly treating our adversaries better than our friends.
In August 2024, Senator Ernst blasted the White House for sending $293 million to the Taliban and updated her TRACKS Act to track and publicly disclose any tax dollars the Pentagon sends to the Taliban or any other foreign adversary.
In September 2024, she called out Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for underfunding veterans by $15 billion but having no clue how many millions it gave to Chinese labs for risky research.
Ernst has worked tirelessly to hold President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris accountable to their “ironclad” commitment to Israel, especially while Americans are held hostage by Iran-backed Hamas.
She called out the Biden-Harris administration in August 2024 for withholding a wide array of congressionally-approved weapons and supplies from Israel.

MIL OSI USA News –

January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI NGOs: Myanmar/Bangladesh: Rohingya community facing gravest threats since 2017
Source: Amnesty International –
- Rohingya say Arakan Army drove them from their homes and killed civilians
- Urgent need for international support and humanitarian aid as thousands of new arrivals seek protection in Bangladesh
- Bangladesh must refrain from sending Rohingya back to Myanmar, where indiscriminate military air strikes also killing civilians
Newly arrived Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh need urgent access to food, shelter and medical attention after enduring the worst violence against their communities since the Myanmar military-led campaign in 2017, Amnesty International said today.

Testimony shows how Rohingya families forced to leave their homes in Myanmar have been caught in the middle of increasingly fierce clashes between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army, one of many armed groups opposing the junta. Hundreds of thousands have been internally displaced and upwards of tens of thousands of Rohingya have crossed the border or are waiting to cross the border to seek refuge in Bangladesh.

“Once again, the Rohingya people are being driven from their homes and dying in scenes tragically reminiscent of the 2017 exodus. We met people who told us they lost parents, siblings, spouses, children and grandchildren as they fled fighting in Myanmar. But this time, they are facing persecution on two fronts, from the rebel Arakan Army and the Myanmar military, which is forcibly conscripting Rohingya men,” Amnesty International’s Secretary General, Agnès Callamard, said.

“Those lucky enough to make it to Bangladesh do not have enough to eat, a proper place to sleep, or even their own clothes.”

The 2021 military coup in Myanmar has had a catastrophic impact on human rights. Myanmar’s military has killed more than 5,000 civilians and arrested more than 25,000 people. Since the coup, Amnesty has documented indiscriminate air strikes by the Myanmar military, torture and other ill-treatment in prison, collective punishment and arbitrary arrests.

The recent escalation in Myanmar’s Rakhine State started in November 2023 with the launch of a rebel counter-offensive by the Arakan Army and two other armed groups that has posed the biggest threat to military control since the 2021 coup. Myanmar’s military has responded by stepping up indiscriminate air strikes that have killed, injured and displaced civilians.

The impact on Rakhine State, where many of the more than 600,000 Rohingya in Myanmar still live, has been severe, with towns transformed into battlegrounds.

The international community needs to step up with funds and assistance for those living in the refugee camps.

In Bangladesh, authorities have been pushing Rohingya fleeing the conflict back into Myanmar, while those who reached the Bangladesh camps told of a desperate shortage of essential supplies and services there.

In September 2024, Amnesty interviewed 22 people in individual and group settings who recently sought refuge in Bangladesh, joining more than one million Rohingya refugees, the majority having arrived in 2017 or earlier.

The new arrivals said the Arakan Army unlawfully killed Rohingya civilians, drove them from their homes and left them vulnerable to attacks, allegations the group denies. These attacks faced by the Rohingya come on top of indiscriminate air strikes by the Myanmar military that have killed both Rohingya and ethnic Rakhine civilians.

Many Rohingya, including children, who were fleeing the violence to Bangladesh drowned while crossing by boat.
MIL OSI NGO –
January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI Security: Japan Self-Defense Forces and U.S. military begin biennial exercise Keen Sword 25

Source: United States INDO PACIFIC COMMAND

SASEBO, NAGASAKI, Japan –

Units from the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) and U.S. military are conducting exercise Keen Sword 25 from Oct. 23 to Nov. 1, 2024, at various locations across Japan.

Keen Sword is the latest in a series of joint-bilateral field training exercises designed to increase combat readiness and interoperability of JSDF and U.S. forces. The U.S.-Japan alliance is built on shared interests and values and a commitment to freedom and human rights. Both countries are focused on ensuring regional peace and security in the Indo-Pacific region, including building new partnerships and strengthening multilateral cooperation.

Service members from the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, Army, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard will conduct training with their JSDF counterparts alongside Australian and Canadian partners throughout mainland Japan, Okinawa prefecture, and its surrounding waters .

During this year’s iteration, the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force’s (JGSDF) Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade (ARDB) and U.S. Marines from III Marine Expeditionary Force (III MEF) will conduct multiple unilateral and side-by-side amphibious landings on Japanese islands as part of the exercise. These events will demonstrate the capability of forward-deployed forces to rapidly counter aggression against Japan and other regional Allies and partners while improving the readiness of our forces.

This exercise, and others like it, are an opportunity to demonstrate to the world our will to defend Japan and the ironclad nature of the U.S.-Japan alliance, which has stood for more than 70 years.

The U.S. units scheduled to participate in Keen Sword 25 are U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM), U.S. Space Command (USSPACECOM), U.S. Pacific Fleet (PACFLT), U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Pacific (MARFORPAC), U.S. Army Pacific (USARPAC), Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), U.S. Forces Japan (USFJ), U.S. 7th Fleet (C7F), III Marine Expeditionary Force (III MEF), 3rd Marine Division (3d MARDIV), III MEF Information Group (III MIG), 3rd Marine Logistics Group (3rd MLG), 1st Marine Aircraft Wing (1st MAW), U.S. Army Japan (USARJ), U.S. Naval Forces Japan (CNFJ), 5th Air Force (5 AF), 94th Army Air and Missile Defense Command (AAMDC); 3rd Multi Domain Task Force (3rd MDTF), 613th Air Operations Center (AOC), 374th Airlift Wing (374 AW), 18th Wing (18 WG), 35th Fighter Wing (35 FW), and 17th Field Artillery Brigade (17th FAB).

Questions regarding JSDF training and personnel should be referred to Japan Joint Staff Office. Questions regarding Keen Sword 25 should be directed to the Combined Joint Information Bureau at indopacom.yokota.usfj.mbx.j021@mail.mil.

Further details of the exercise will be released throughout Keen Sword 25.

MIL Security OSI –

January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI Security: Austin Confirms North Korea Has Sent Troops to Russia

Source: United States INDO PACIFIC COMMAND

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III confirmed there are North Korean troops in Russia, but it is unclear if they are preparing to become a co-belligerent in Russia’s war on Ukraine.

“We are seeing evidence that there are North Korean troops that have gone to … Russia,” Austin told reporters in Rome. “What exactly they are doing is left to be seen. These are things that we need to sort out.”

Austin said the United States is trying to get fidelity on why the North Korean soldiers are in Russia. “We will continue to pull this thread and see what happens here,” he said. “If they’re co-belligerents — [if] their intention is to participate in this war on Russia’s behalf — that is a very, very serious issue.” Impacts of such a move would be felt not only in Europe, but the Indo-Pacific region also, the secretary said.

Austin noted that South Korean leaders are intently watching this play out.

North Korea is one of Russia’s few open allies in its unjust war on Ukraine. North Korea has shipped arms and munitions to Russia, “and this is a next step,” Austin said.

President Vladimir Putin has taken significant casualties in his misguided war on Ukraine. U.S. officials said recently that Russia has lost more than 300,000 service members since the war began in February 2022. “This is an indication that he may be [in even] more trouble than most people realize,” Austin said. “But again, he went ‘tin-cupping’ early on to get additional weapons and materials from [North Korea], and then from Iran and now he’s making a move to get more people, if … these troops are designed to be a part of the fight in Ukraine.”

Austin spoke at the end of a long trip where he first participated in the last NATO Defense Ministerial of the Biden Administration. He then moved to Rome where he took part in the first G-7 Defense Ministers Meeting. He made an unannounced trip to Kyiv where he met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his defense leadership. He returned to Rome and met with Pope Francis in the Vatican.

Austin said the Pope is focused on the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. “He is concerned about humanitarian issues in both areas, and of course, we share a common desire to see these conflicts scale back in terms of the level of activity and in a ceasefire,” Austin said.

MIL Security OSI –

January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: FEMA Recognizes Emergency Management Institute’s 70 Years of Training

Source: US Federal Emergency Management Agency 2

FEMA Recognizes Emergency Management Institute’s 70 Years of Training
jessica.geraci
Mon, 05/24/2021 – 14:22

Release Date
May 24, 2021

This year, FEMA commends the Emergency Management Institute on their 70 years of training those who serve our nation.

The Civil Defense Staff College opened April 1, 1951 with the intention of teaching civil defense courses during the Cold War. Concerns about a potential attack led the college to relocate the campus from Olney, Maryland to St. Joseph’s campus in Battle Creek, Michigan.

When FEMA was created in 1979, the Civil Defense Staff College joined with several other federal agencies focused on disaster response, including the Defense Civil Preparedness Agency. In the same year, the Civil Defense Staff College closed and merged its programs and students with the National Emergency Training Center.

President Jimmy Carter dedicated the former Mount Saint Mary’s University, in Emmitsburg, Maryland, as the FEMA National Emergency Training Center. The training center was later changed to the Emergency Management Institute, a broader name that included the National Fire Academy and reflected the nation’s readiness posture. The Emergency Management Institute moved from Battle Creek, Michigan to Emmitsburg, Maryland a year later, and in 1981, the Institute held its first class.

In 1992, Hurricane Andrew highlighted the need to address the training implications for emergency managers at all levels of government when it devastated portions of South Florida, Louisiana, and the Caribbean. After careful consideration, it became apparent that the Institute could no longer serve as both a training and an educational institution.

To address this, FEMA develop a plan to transition the institute’s educational mission to colleges and universities to foster a higher level of commitment to emergency management. A year later, FEMA launched the Emergency Management Higher Education Project. The name of was changed in 2008 to Emergency Management Higher Education Program.

At that time, only three higher education institutions offered emergency management programs. This repositioning encouraged and supported the teaching of emergency management in colleges and universities across the country to help ensure that the next generation of emergency managers come to the job with a degree in emergency management.

In 2017, the Higher Education Program was reassigned from the Emergency Management Institute to the National Training and Education Division at FEMA headquarters to raise its profile and expand the reach of the program. The move also helped build closer relationships with FEMA’s training and education programs.

There are currently more than 721 emergency management programs throughout the United States and offered across the globe. Of the almost 8,000 graduates who earned an emergency management degree in 2020, nearly half of those graduates move on to public sector emergency management positions. The remaining graduates chose jobs as part-time faculty.

Emergency managers are integral to FEMA’s efforts to protect the nation and help families and communities feel cared for and more resilient when a disaster strikes.

Having the tools, resources and space available to train emergency management professionals is critical. The ability of the Emergency Management Institute and the Higher Education Project to provide these is vital to the country’s future.

The Emergency Management Institute will host its 70th anniversary celebration on its website in the upcoming weeks. Stay tuned for upcoming notices and events.

All

Emergency Manager
Emergency Plan
Training

MIL OSI USA News –

January 25, 2025
MIL-Evening Report: Lee Miller helped shape our understanding of war. Her life as a photojournalist echo in those working today

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrea Jean Baker, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, Monash University

STUDIOCANAL

This story contains spoilers.

Lee, the feature film debut from director Ellen Kuras, explores the rawness of authentic image making and the impact of gender in war reporting.

Kate Winslet stars as the world weary photojournalist Elizabeth “Lee” Miller – better known for featuring in an iconic photograph, rather than taking one.

The same day Adolf Hitler committed suicide at his Berlin bunker in 1945, photojournalist David E. Scherman took a photograph of Miller sitting in the bath in Hitler’s Munich apartment.

But Miller was also a trailblazing, feminist photojournalist who managed to shift Vogue magazine from beauty and aesthetics to capturing the reality of the second world war. She gave us images of the frontline, fearful women and children, concentration camps, and the aftermath of war.

Here’s what you should know about the real woman behind the film – and what we can learn about war correspondents today through her story.

In front of and behind the camera

Miller was born in New York in 1907, and began her bohemian life as a model for Vogue before the war, and as a muse to her surrealist mentor Man Ray.

The film follows Miller from her work as a fashion photographer pre-war, through to her photographing the second world war and then the liberation of Paris in 1945.

Lee explores tensions with other renowned photographers at the time, such as Cecil Beaton (Samuel Barnett); her relationship with the second husband, English artist, historian and poet, Roland Penrose (Alexander Skarsgård); and her connections to the French resistance.

Female photojournalists of the time were usually assigned to taking portraits or working in fashion.

Miller, second from right, with other female war correspondents who covered the U.S. Army, photographed in 1943.
U.S. Army Official Photograph/Wikimedia Commons

When Miller was in her 30s, her photographs for Vogue leaned towards the surreal. This was also seen in her Blitz images, where two staff from the magazine wearing creatively designed gas masks about to enter a bomb shelter was published in the London edition.

When the war broke out, Miller was accredited as one of four American female photojournalists. Like fellow American Margaret Bourke-White, Miller was known for the horrific images of Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps in Germany, reinforcing the fact that photojournalism tells a story that is more powerful than any other form of journalism.

Ethics and photojournalism

A 2019 study examined how professional photojournalists apply ethics to their work.

Photojournalists believe photographs should be published alongside news, that photographers are key in supporting the public’s “right to know”, and they must balance “their obligation to the truth, while minimising harm”.

You can see these ethical frameworks all at play in Miller’s work, especially in her images of Dachau just after the war.

Lee faced similar issues around ethics that photojournalists face today.
STUDIOCANAL

The editor of British Vogue, Audrey Withers (played in the film by Andrea Riseborough), refused to publish the photos. But American Vogue published them in June 1945, with the headline “Believe it”, as a modern memorial to the war.

But photojournalists also take actions that prioritise themselves. Sherman’s image of Miller sitting in Hitler’s bath, though a visual metaphor for the end of the war, has been criticised as a “look at me” moment.

In 2006, the New York Times described the photograph as “a woman caught between horror and beauty, between being seen and being the seer”.

The place of the woman photographer

Contemporary research suggests female photojournalists are more empathetic and have better access to vulnerable subjects than their male counterparts.

In the film, Miller’s gentle photo of a French woman publicly accused of being an informant to the Germans illustrates empathy, while masking the hidden contradictions of war.

Befriending a frightened girl in a bomb shelter, Miller has flashbacks of her youth as a victim-survivor of sexual violence. “There are different kinds of wounds, not just the ones you see,” she says in the film.

A survey in 2019 of 545 female photojournalists from 71 countries found women faced more obstacles than their male counterparts, are still considered subordinate in the profession and subject to sexism.

During the war, Miller used the gender-neutral Lee as her first name, instead of Elizabeth, fearing press accreditation on the frontline would not be approved if she was a woman.

The National Press Photographers Association say gender bias and assumptions still continue to hinder female photojournalists. These commonly held assumptions include women are weaker, less skilled and will eventually leave the profession to raise a child.

Living through her archive

Lee begins and ends with the 70-year-old Miller reflecting on her career to a young male journalist, while continuously gulping down alcohol, perhaps illustrating undiagnosed post traumatic stress syndrome, all too common among news photographers.

Returning to London after the war, Miller gave up photojournalism.

After her death in 1977, more than 60,000 negatives of her work were discovered in her attic at home. These images of surrealist photography, Vogue editorials, second world war photojournalism and portraits of important 20th century figures formed the basis of her 1985 biography, The lives of Lee Miller, written by her son Antony Penrose.

Lee is a visually, brave story about a female photojournalist whose images alter and enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at – and what we have a right to observe.

Andrea Jean Baker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Lee Miller helped shape our understanding of war. Her life as a photojournalist echo in those working today – https://theconversation.com/lee-miller-helped-shape-our-understanding-of-war-her-life-as-a-photojournalist-echo-in-those-working-today-236878

MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: Readout of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. CQ Brown, Jr.’s Meeting with Ireland’s Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces Lt. Gen. Seán Clancy

Source: US Defense Joint Chiefs of Staff

Headline: Readout of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. CQ Brown, Jr.’s Meeting with Ireland’s Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces Lt. Gen. Seán Clancy

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. CQ Brown, Jr., met with Ireland’s Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces Lt. Gen. Seán Clancy today at the Pentagon. The military leaders discussed Ireland’s defense modernization efforts and the current security environment in the Middle East.

MIL OSI USA News –

January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI Security: Readout of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. CQ Brown, Jr.’s Meeting with Ireland’s Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces Lt. Gen. Seán Clancy

Source: US Defense Joint Chiefs of Staff

Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Public Affairs

October 23, 2024

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Joint Staff Spokesperson Navy Capt. Jereal Dorsey provided the following readout:

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. CQ Brown, Jr., met with Ireland’s Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces Lt. Gen. Seán Clancy today at the Pentagon.

The military leaders discussed Ireland’s defense modernization efforts and the current security environment in the Middle East. Gen. Brown also thanked Ireland for its willingness to provide training and non-lethal aid to Ukraine in defense of its sovereign territory.

Gen. Brown congratulated Lt. Gen. Clancy on his recent election as the next chairman of the European Union Military Committee and stated he looks forward to welcoming Ireland’s first defense attaché to Washington.

MIL Security OSI –

January 25, 2025
MIL-OSI NGOs: ‘A small fragment hit my son, killing him’: Rohingya refugee tells of terror of intensifying Myanmar conflict

Source: Amnesty International –

New Amnesty research shows the extent of the ongoing suffering of civilians trapped in fighting between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army in Rakhine State. Here a 42-year-old Rohingya shopkeeper* from Maungdaw Township recounts his family’s desperate efforts to escape and reach a refugee camp across the border in Bangladesh.

I never truly wanted to come to Bangladesh.

I lost my youngest son in a bomb blast on 1 August while he was playing outside the house. He was 4 years old and was one of the most loved members of the family. He was playing with his siblings and, being the youngest, he couldn’t run when the sound of the bomb was heard. The bomb struck near our house, and a small fragment hit my son, killing him. We left the village after we performed the funeral rites and buried him. I’m not sure who fired it – whether it was the Myanmar military or the Arakan Army (AA).

MIL OSI NGO –

January 25, 2025